Can Acupuncture Help With Vertigo? Yes It Can!

Let’s talk about vertigo (the sensation of dizziness). Not enough people realize it’s something with which acupuncture can help.

A lot of things can cause a symptom of vertigo. But in the interest of time, let’s focus on issues relating to the inner ear.

The Inner Ear and Vertigo

So what does your inner ear have to do with it? It’s a good, strategic location to have the bony labyrinth – a tiny bone with three fluid filled loops pointing along each of the three axes. As you move your head around, the nerves in there can read the motion of the fluid and the fluid levels. That tells your brain how your head is moving and where it is in space.

Things can goes awry in there, like an inner ear infection. Or the nerve going to it, or the bone itself, is infected or inflamed. Or even something like Meniere’s disease. But regardless of the cause, all these conditions create too much fluid in those little loops of the bony labyrinth. When this buildup of fluid happens, you get strange, conflicting data going to your brain.

This conflicting data makes your brain thinks the head is moving when it’s not. And that’s when you get sensations like the room is spinning. Or sensations that you’re moving, unstable on your feet, or have poor balance.

Acupuncture for Vertigo

Acupuncture is pretty good at harmonizing and balancing. If you put the needles in the area and, in certain circumstances, even some distal sites that link up to that area, and then do the right needle technique you can affect fluid balance. Acupuncture can help manage the amount of fluid coming to and from the area, or blood coming to and from the area, or even possibly affect nerve conductance, and help balance things out.

Chinese Herbs for Vertigo

In terms of herbs to use in conjunction with acupuncture, there are a lot of anti-inflammatory and damp draining ones. If there’s too much fluid in the area, or in the bone itself, these herbs have the effect of slowly draining and balancing things out.

These treatments in combination help everything in the inner ear return to a proper state.

If you have any questions about how acupuncture, and other aspects of Chinese medicine for vertigo, please give us a call today.

Acupuncture Therapy for Peripheral Vestibular Vertigo (with Suspected Ménière’s Disease), Medical Acupuncture, April 13, 2023

Clinical research progress on acupuncture for the treatment of otogenic vertigo, World Journal of Clinical Cases, July 6, 2024

Meta Analysis of Acupuncture Treatment for Vertigo with Excess Syndrome, Shanghai Journal of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, 2015