When the World Spins

Vertigo is surprisingly common. Here’s how to handle it.

- Karen Robock

ONE MORNING LAST winter, Lynn Smith was doing a series of gentle yoga stretches in her living room, trying to loosen up a stiff lower back. When the 56-year-old sat up, she felt a bit strange. "I started to feel dizzy in a way I had not felt before," she says.

In bed that night, Smith had the sensation that the room was spinning. She would later learn that she was experiencing her first episode of vertigo.

Vertigo is often described as a sensation of motion, but it's more complex than a dizzy spell. Ringing in the ears, loss of balance, double vision and trouble swallowing are other common sensations, depending on what is causing the vertigo. Each episode can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few days.

Although it can affect people of all ages, vertigo is most common in midlife and beyond. It's also more prevalent in women, though experts don't fully understand why, says Dr. Terry Fife, a neurologist at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, who specializes in balance disorders.