Why Your ENT Can't Fix Your Vertigo (And What Actually Will)
Debilitating dizziness often stems from a perfect storm of hidden stressors—from dental work to past trauma—that your ENT is completely overlooking.
Topics: vertigo, issues, health, inner, dental, dizziness, https, integrativeyou
Key takeaways from this episode
- :00 The Frustration of Vertigo: Why Conventional Approaches Fail
- :15 Beyond the Inner Ear: Two Overlooked Systems
- :30 Childhood Issues That Set the Stage for Vertigo
- :45 The "Straw That Broke the Camel's Back": Triggers for Vertigo
- :00 The Surprising Link Between Dental Procedures and Vertigo
Pull quotes
You go to the ENT, have a procedure, and expect your problem to be solved. When it’s not, you feel really fucking defeated because the one person who was supposed to know didn't have the answer.
The most consistent trigger we see for vertigo is a dental procedure—a root canal, a cracked filling, or an old infection. This event unleashes a cascade of massive inflammation that kicks it all off.
Your vertigo has a psychosomatic link. For the ears, it's 'What are you not wanting to hear?' For the eyes, 'What are you not wanting to see?' Your symptoms are asking you a question.
Transcript
Dr. Nicole (00:00)
Welcome back to Integrative You Radio. We are having a lovely rough start with our technology today. So here we are. We're giving this another go. But today we are talking about Vertigo. And our main intention for this podcast is to help you understand why you might be stuck and to help you understand why you feel very frustrated and potentially like, holy crap, I have to live with this for the rest of my life.
Which we very much know how debilitating Vertigo is, because it ranges. It has a massive spectrum for a lot of people. There are some people that have these bouts of dizziness that they can recuperate and recalibrate in, you know, 15, 20 minutes and get back to their day. And there are other people that are have to lock themselves in a room while they're vomiting and everything is spinning and the it takes them days, maybe weeks to recover.
We've seen both ends of the spectrum in our practice. And when it comes to that, this is in, I think the the understanding or the thought process is how messed up is my inner ear? And that dictates the severity and the frequency of my vertigo. And we have seen that yes, there is involvement with the inner ear, but there are other layers.
To why the inner ear is compromised in the first place. But then there are two other systems that are being overlooked completely. So we're gonna start with this. If you have vertigo and you've been to an ENT, which we understand is the conventional recommendation, go to the EENT because vertigo is an inner ear issue and you'll figure out what's going on with your inner ear and how to fix it.
There are a lot of people that have been there, done that, and they are not any better. Or maybe they're a little bit better, or they've undergone surgery, but they still have some level of vertigo. And that's very frustrating. You think I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna have some type of procedure and my problem is gonna be solved. And when it's not, you feel really fucking defeated. So the biggest things that we have seen with vertigo.
Is yes, there is some issues going on with the inner ear, but some of the reasons why started when they were young.
And then they had compounding factors in their later years that then unleashed already pre-existing problems. So let's let now let's go into like what the hell am I actually talking about? There are a lot of people that have had different issues as kids, teenagers, throat issues, maybe tonsils removed. They were an athlete, lots of issues with getting hit in the head, hurting their neck.
Now we call it, I just slept wrong. Sinus infections, lots of cavities as a kid, headaches, migraines. These are all things that are showcasing there is compromised systems. There's issues in the sinuses, there's possibly issues in the tonsils, issues in the lymph nodes, issues in the structure of the neck, issues with blood flow and drainage, blood flow up, blood flow down to the brain.
All of these things are setting you up for the opportunity to get vertigo down the line. This is why very often it's like the straw that broke the camel's back. People are like, I had no issues. But again, they maybe had chronic sore throats, chronic sinus infections, maybe they had really bad vision as a kid, had glasses at an early age, headaches, and then they go through a stressful event. Or then they hurt their neck in a car accident, or then
They get hit in the head or get injured doing some type of weekend sport. And then it's boom, vertigo. The biggest one that we have seen most consistently with vertigo is a dental procedure. Or either a dental procedure, a dental procedure gone wrong, or something happening dental-wise that a root canal cracked or a filling cracked. And this is the cascade.
To massive inflammation that now kicks off vertigo. There's more than that, but I see Nick's face. I'm gonna let him jump in and then we're gonna continue the conversation of really bridging this gap for you guys so that you understand what at the end of this that you can really have an idea of like, holy crap, that might be my root cause. Now I know what to do and who to go to to get more answers.
Dr. Nick (04:58)
Well, think the the biggest problem people have when it comes to evaluating Vertigo as well as trying to quote unquote heal from it is just from, you know, the shitty programming that we've been in, you know, is that there's one problem, there's one solution. And vertigo's complex. You know, it's, you know.
s simplifying it, it comes from an inner ear, it comes from the eyes, and it comes from your cerebellum. So when I've evaluated clients with vertigo, I've never quote unquote received a one problem to the symptoms. It's always been
Dr. Nicole (05:45)
Yeah.
Dr. Nick (05:46)
at least two, if not usually all three of those areas being compromised.
What's great about this, you know, you could be listening like, fuck, like there's so much, there's so much wrong. But the great part about this is that when you actually evaluate all three and start working in all three, you don't have to create such a massive change to get the results you want because you're working on all three systems that is connected to the symptoms of vertigo instead of just trying to do all you can in one system, which doesn't make any sense. And then you compound that.
That's just the body. Almost nobody's looking at the mental psychosomatic connections with those three systems. And it's the psychosomatic aspect is, you know, okay, if one's the ears, simply put, it gets deeper in this with each client, but it's like, what are you not wanting to hear? The eyes. What are you not wanting to see?
Dr. Nicole (06:39)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (06:41)
The cerebellum. Cerebellum is your it's connected to what's called proprioception, your your awareness in space.
So it's like, where are you not grounded? Where have, you know, you lost control,
Dr. Nicole (06:54)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (06:55)
your stability. And with that, that's a broad question. So the quality of your life is dictated by the quality of the questions you ask. You you need to run through what I call every single bucket of life with this, you know.
from from the scene, from the hearing, and you know, your standing on your your grounded foundation, the strength of it, you know, the bucket of your relationship, the bucket of your wealth, the bucket of your service, the bucket of your family. Like you need to go through every single bucket to evaluate each one of those. And then you'll start getting some quality data to say, like, okay, these are all great. But, you know, I'm
I'm seeing a reality. I'm can't comparing myself to the Joneses. You know, I'm always trying to keep up with this and that.
Dr. Nicole (07:43)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (07:43)
You know, that's injected values. That's actually not who you are. That's not what's important to you. So you're doing things visually to create this life that's actually not authentic to you. Guess what? You're gonna feed feedback mechanism. Same thing with hearing. It's the same questions, but replace the scene with the hearing, with you know, the foundation of your stability of, you know.
what you're standing on, walking on, et cetera.
Dr. Nicole (08:12)
Yeah, I I think one of the things that I heard from a manifestation guru, I guess you can call it. And she asked, where do you feel like your life is spiraling up? And where do you feel like it's spiraling down? And it's exactly what you said is that you know, not very often do we feel like every single part of life is spiraling down and chaotic and falling apart, maybe in some scenarios, but it's usually one major
Bucket. And you know, we might feel like things are going well financially, but my relationships are on a downward spiral. You know, things might be going well at work, but things are not going well at home. And it just feels like this spiral of chaos. And, you know, it's like that idea of, you know, you're just like stuck in a tornado of chaos. And this is something that goes hand in hand with the very symptoms of vertigo as well.
And so this is not to say that this is the sole reason, but a lot of times when we ask better questions to the people that we work with, we find that it's the perfect storm. It's the perfect storm that something started spiraling. and it was really hard to mentally process that or overcome that challenge or not feel emotionally burdened by that circumstance. But that then
Coincided right aro around the same time that a tooth started hurting, or they did have dental work, or they did have some type of, you know, car accident issue with their neck, or they had a really, really bad sinus infection. And this perfect storm is when you're going to then have that massive inflammation that's then going to create the onset of the vertigo. So there's this is not genetic, this is not bad luck, this is not, you know.
We don't know why, there's no reason. It's a matter of looking at things that are being overlooked when it comes to vertigo, because it's supposed to match the textbook of, you have crystals built up in your inner ear, and that's the end of the story. When in reality, in all the years that we've been doing this, 15 years now, one of the reasons why we've become the black sheep of healthcare is because no one fucking matched the textbook ever.
And we felt very powerless in our early, early years in our career because we're like, what the hell are we missing? And why are we not able to help people in the capacity that we want? And it was because we were taught to silo everything out that, you know, it it's supposed to match X. And that was not the case because people are navigating all the areas of life. They're navigating relationships, they're navigating family, they're navigating their own personal.
Development, growth, triggers, experiences, they're navigating, you know, their health and their finances. So, why do we think that those are not interconnected with the symptoms that we have? We have to consider this because when you really stop and you think about it and you map the timeline, and we have the proof of this because we have done intakes.
With very very thorough questioning for 15 years. And we always find that in that timeline, there was something physically that changed, and there was something mentally and emotionally that changed, or some type of experience that was correlated to the onset of the symptoms. So if you're not looking at all of these different pieces, you're going to get stuck. And I know nobody wants to be stuck with vertigo because you lose.
Days, weeks of your life.
Dr. Nick (12:04)
Yeah, I think the most important thing you said right there is is information. You know, it's like we're we're only stuck in an issue based on not having quality data. So it you can't make intelligent decisions without greater awareness. That's why I think the most the most powerful thing that one can have is self-awareness and being able to use tools to
give you access to that data, to that awareness is actually going to be more self-empowering because then you know why it happened, but then you also know what you can do to create that change. You don't want to just create a change, but really not know why it occurred because if you don't change why it occurred, well that cycle in the background is still running and, you know, this is, well, came back again. Well no shit it came back again because you didn't change the why, you just changed the effect of it.
So having the data of of both sides of why it why it occurred, so you can change why it occurred, who you are, what you've been doing, eating, drinking, et cetera. And then what you need to do to be able to heal are the two most important things to evaluate and take action on. The the the why, you know, looking at just the flow of energy is energy flows above down inside out. So that above down.
Is not getting woo-woo, but it goes into the spirit, the spirit governs the mind, and the mind dictates the expression of the body. The body then sends out a vibration, and this is getting to quantum physics. The body sends out a vibration because our entire world around us is actually just wavelengths. And once that vibration goes out and we perceive that vibration, that vibration
drops from a wavelength into a particle and then we experience reality around us. That's why if you ask twenty people that just saw an accident, they're all going to explain the accident differently because they're actually experiencing the accident differently based on the resonance that they are giving off. Gets crazy.
So when we look at well,
Dr. Nicole (14:23)
Is it that crazy?
Dr. Nick (14:25)
it's not crazy. I mean, it's it's pretty amazing. So when we look at that big structure, that's that initial spirit is that it's your inner spirit inspired. Are you living a life that's inspirational? That it's full of get-to-dos, or is it full of have to do's? Because if it's full of have to do's, that's going to be the first stress response. And everything's going down to what? How you see the world, how you hear the world, and the strength of
Your foundation. Is it stable or is it unstable? It's going to be unstable if we're living in a lot of injected values, things that actually aren't important to us, that aren't inspiring to us. But it's going to be a very strong and stable and adaptable environment if it's a full of get-to's, things that are highly important and productive for us, hence in alignment with our top values, things that are inspiring. And then it's the mind's job to be able to increase that awareness, hopefully in a balanced perspective.
Because that's the most adaptable aspect of seeing both negative and positive, bad and good. And when we can see both sides, because we live in this world of duality, there is that negative and positive charge. When we can experience both sides and use both sides to serve us, well, then again, everything's an on the way. I get to, not a have to, I'm a victim. This happened to me. And just changing your belief and your awareness.
To understanding that's how your world works is one of the most empowering things that you'll ever do in your life. It's it's clinically, if I'm working the past 15 years of people, it's probably the number one thing that allows us clients to get results or not, is the change
Dr. Nicole (16:11)
Yeah.
Dr. Nick (16:11)
in that perception of this thing, it sucked. Painful. Yeah, bad things happen.
You don't change the bad thing, you figure out how to use it to serve yourself and move on and carry on and live a great life. But if this bad thing happened to me and I'm a v victim, then
Dr. Nicole (16:26)
I think that something go ahead.
Dr. Nick (16:29)
you're seeing the world in an unbalanced way and you're a victim to it. You're hearing things that's you're a victim. That's a breakdown, not a build up. And when we do that, the entire world we live on is spinning out of control and it's unstable. So
Everything is just a symptom and vertigo to actually help you empower yourself, which is amazing. It's it it may be a shitty experience at first, but as you use that experience to empower yourself and grow and live healthier and detox, you know, there's the physical side of it as well. But as we do that, we become healthier, we become more empowered, we become more aligned, we become more inspired, we become more loving, which means.
We have better relationships, which means we can make more money, which means we're present with our kids. Like that's the goal in life. It's not it's not to be out of pain. It's not to not have the symptoms averte go. It's to live a fucking amazing life. And by doing that, your symptoms go away.
Sorry, I was a little passionate there.
Dr. Nicole (17:36)
Well I think that one of the
I think that something that I wanna expand upon with what you're saying is a lot of times when people have symptoms, especially something like vertigo that wipes them out and and you know doesn't allow them to do what they normally do.
There is a comment that I've heard many, many, many, many times over the years is I just need to get back to normal. I need to get back to my normal life. And when something like vertigo, because as we've already established, vertigo can be debilitating. People can literally lose days, maybe weeks of their life, depending on how severe the symptoms are. So when this happens, this is essentially.
you know, the feedback mechanism saying, fucking stop because you're not getting it. And we're going to put you in a position that you have to stop because you can't even function. And so we have to reevaluate what this idea of getting back to normal is. Because getting back to normal, if that means I got to get back to work and I got to get back to all the things I have to do. And I actually don't really live a life of anything that I like to do, I just feel really stuck, then that's
And again, the reason why, say, vertigo happens to you opposed to some other type of condition or or diagnosis is because there's usually one, it's a feedback mechanism to say things are spiraling out of out of control, or you are not grounded in in what you're doing.
But also then there's those underlying factors that are going on physically in the body that also creates more vulnerability in certain parts. Meaning, if you have that history of lots of dental interventions, you have a history of chronic tonsil issues, you have a history of chronic neck issues, you have a history of head injuries, you have a history of sinus issues, then that's a very vulnerable part of your system because of.
Physical issues and inflammation and infections or pathogens, whatever it is for you. So then you have that tipping point where now there is other environmental factors, lifestyle factors, stress factors, and it's the tipping point. So understanding that it all compounds together, and this is all these factors have to be considered when it comes to the healing process. And so for those of you that are sitting there, like, well.
I have had sinus issues and I've had head injuries and my neck sucks and I have dental things and I have stress. I get it. We get it. And we're not saying, wow, you're a hot mess express. Wow, you're not fixable. What we're saying is that it's all more interconnected than you realize, especially if you are experiencing vertigo. And it's a matter of someone taking the time to decipher which is the most foundational that needs to be addressed because.
Some of it is actually more of an effect. And there's probably one to two things that are the most foundational for you. And if you can address the most foundational, you're gonna see a lot of the other dominoes fall, aka a lot of these other symptoms resolve. But as Nick is saying, if you are trying to quote unquote get back to normal.
Which that normal is a life that you really don't fucking like, and you're people pleasing and you're doing shit for everyone else, and you're the last one to be taken care of, and you're just so busy to the point of distraction, then there's a probability that this is gonna creep back up on you because it's showing you as a feedback mechanism that, okay, maybe you've improved your physical body, but if you haven't improved your overall quality of life.
And you don't want to see that.
There's going to either be the vertigo sticking around, or there's going to be different symptoms that are giving you the feedback of, hey, guess what? You're important too. And it's not about putting everyone and everything else before you. Because this isn't just about health. This is about the health of your life.
Dr. Nick (22:11)
The it's just
It's nobody's fault. Th vertigo's complex. You know, like we could probably
Dr. Nicole (22:21)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (22:21)
do at least six different podcasts on this. You know, it's just
Dr. Nicole (22:26)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (22:27)
it gets to the depth of, you know, each organ system is connected to a tooth. So you could have a tooth going down affecting an organ system, but you can have an organ system that's struggling and dysregulated, and that energy is gonna go up and be connected with a tooth. And
Then that tooth could be connected to a nerve, which is just the tipping point to, you know, say, all right, I can't do this. Now I'm gonna put more pressure onto the cerebellum or onto the inner ear. And like you said, due to inflammation, due to head injuries, due to neck, et cetera, then over a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, it can't deal with it anymore. And then boom, you have vertigo. So
It does get very complex, which, you know, honestly is why we created what we did with with InSpo and the intakes, is like if you don't have the data, it's impossible to really truly heal from the body and healing all the different possibilities that could be broken with it physically as well as through the neural communication.
But then also through that psychosomatic, you know, mind-body connection of what are the imbalances of how I'm living my life and the choices I'm making. And is it in alignment with actually being inspired or not? And going through all those different buckets to saying, like, hey, this is this is an opportunity for me to live, live a better life.
Dr. Nicole (24:05)
Well, yeah, I think that if you if you break everything down and you think, gosh, I need to heal my vertigo. And yes, I have this, this, this, this, you know, it's you could okay, well, I've had chronic throat issues. So maybe I need to start doing oral rinses. I have dental issues. Maybe I now need to go to a dentist. I've had chronic sinus issues. Okay, let me start doing nasal rinses or, you know, neti pots or nasal spray.
I have inner ear stuff. Maybe I need to start addressing my ear and I have to go do different exercises with a neurologist. So you could easily think, like, my gosh, I don't even I can't possibly heal. I can't do all of these different things. But the moral of the story of what we're trying to say is that again, there are one to two things that are the most foundational for you, depending on understanding the big picture of everything going on. And if you can address those two things, then
you're going to see the resolution of a lot of these different symptoms. So yes, vertigo can be complex, but again, with the right questions and the right data, you can simplify it dramatically and focus in on two major things to know this is going to move the needle the most for you. And so in these programs that we've created, like foundation and DNA precision, foundation and DA precision are going to consider all of these different factors. And then it's going to give you a 90 day
plan that's going to be precise to you saying hone in on these things based off of you, your blueprint, your DNA.
Dr. Nick (25:40)
And and the science is just so cool that's that's coming up, you know, every single day is how interconnected the the the physical stress on the human body is with the emotional stress. You know, it's and when I say like specific of, you know, it's even the the crani not that people give a shit, but you know, your cranial nerve four, as that innervates the eye, that's connected to you looking down.
Well, looking down on life is connected to holding on to shame and guilt. So there's there's always an interconnectedness with a physical stress response as well as with a mental emotional stress response. And when you can work on both sides at the same time, you're gonna get the best, quickest feedback or change that you possibly can. And it's just amazing to be able to get that data so that you have both sides to be able to work on.
Dr. Nicole (26:40)
100%. All right, guys, there's a lot of information. We're gonna leave it there. If you guys have questions, pop them below. But you'll have links to some of the things that we talked about today that you can check out.
Related episodes
About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
Further reading
Listen and read the full episode →