The Strange Reason You May Suddenly Feel Dizzy

If you’ve ever sat up quickly or rolled over in bed abruptly and felt like the room was spinning or whirling around you when you’re actually still, you may have experienced a condition called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) without knowing what it was. This vestibular disorder—one that affects the inner ear—is one of the most common causes of vertigo, and it can make people feel very dizzy, unsteady, sweaty, even nauseous. Individual bouts tend to be brief—usually lasting 15 to 60 seconds at a time—but they can recur with certain head movements, make it difficult to function, and increase the risk of falling.“The term ‘benign’ is the first part of the phrase—it does not feel benign when you experience it,” says Dr. Nedim Durakovic, an associate professor of otolaryngology and neurotology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Before the condition was well understood, “people thought that patients were having strokes when they had vertigo, [but] this is not the stroke form of vertigo.”Here’s what to know about BPPV.What causes BPPV?With BPPV, tiny calcium carbonate crystals—called otoconia—that usually sit on hair cells in the inner ear get dislodg...