Dizzy, off balance or motion sensitive with migraine?
Vestibular migraine can cause vertigo, dizziness, imbalance and motion sensitivity, sometimes with very little headache at all.
We help you make sense of the pattern, assess the systems relevant to your symptoms and give you a clearer plan forward.
Vestibular migraine doesn't always feel like a typical migraine.
Dizziness or vertigo
You may feel spinning, rocking, floating or simply disorientated, even when headache isn't the main symptom.
Movement sets things off
Turning your head, walking through busy environments, driving or watching movement may make symptoms worse.
Busy places feel overwhelming
Supermarkets, crowds, scrolling screens or visually complex environments may provoke dizziness, nausea or imbalance.
Vestibular migraine can occur with or without headache. Symptoms can also overlap with other vestibular conditions, so the pattern matters.
We look beyond the word “dizzy”.
Dizziness can mean very different things to different people. Your assessment starts by understanding exactly what you feel, when it occurs and what brings it on.
- Your migraine and headache history
- The type and duration of your dizziness
- Motion and visual sensitivity
- Balance and postural control
- Eye movement and vestibular function where relevant
- Head movement sensitivity
- Neck symptoms and cervical function where relevant
- Previous vestibular or neurological investigations
Not every episode of dizziness is vestibular migraine.
Conditions such as BPPV and other vestibular disorders can produce similar symptoms. Sometimes more than one condition may also be present.
Vestibular migraine is diagnosed largely from the pattern of recurrent vestibular symptoms, migraine history or migraine features, and excluding another explanation that better accounts for the symptoms.
Our job is not to force every dizzy patient into a migraine diagnosis. It's to work out which findings appear relevant in your case.
Treatment depends on what is contributing to your symptoms.
Vestibular migraine often needs a broader approach than treating headache or dizziness in isolation.
Vestibular rehabilitation
Where appropriate, rehabilitation may target motion sensitivity, balance, visual motion intolerance and confidence with movement.
Headache + cervical assessment
If headache or neck symptoms are also part of the presentation, we assess whether these findings are relevant rather than assuming the neck is the cause of the dizziness.
Medical migraine management
Acute or preventive migraine medication may form part of your care and is best discussed with your GP, neurologist or prescribing clinician.
“My scans and inner ear tests were normal, but I still feel dizzy.”
Normal investigations don't mean your symptoms aren't real. Vestibular migraine is primarily identified from the clinical pattern rather than a single scan or test.
The aim of assessment is to understand that pattern, identify anything else that may be contributing and decide what should happen next.
If dizziness and migraine seem connected, start by understanding the pattern.
We'll assess the areas relevant to your symptoms and help you work out what the next step should be.