Dizziness and Fatigue: 9 Possible Causes

Many different conditions can make you feel both dizzy and tired. Sometimes these symptoms are temporary, or they might come and go.

Dizziness is a word that describes the sensation of spinning while being off-balance. To explain to your doctor exactly how you feel, you can use these more specific terms:

• disequilibrium is when you feel unsteady
• lightheaded means you feel faint or woozy
• vertigo is a spinning sensation when you aren’t moving

Many different conditions can make you feel both dizzy and tired. Sometimes these symptoms are temporary, or they might come and go. If you often feel dizzy and tired, see your doctor for a diagnosis. Untreated dizziness and fatigue can cause a fall. It can also increase your risk of getting into an accident while driving.

Your body needs sugar, also known as glucose, for energy. When your blood sugar level drops, you can become dizzy, shaky, and tired.

Low blood sugar is often a side effect of insulin and other drugs used to treat diabetes. These drugs lower blood sugar, but if the dose isn’t right your blood sugar can drop too much.

You can also get hypoglycemia if you don’t have diabetes. It can occur if you haven’t eaten in a while or if you drink alcohol without eating.

Other symptoms of low blood sugar are:

• fast heartbeat
• sweating
• shaking
• hunger
• irritability
• confusion

A fast-acting source of carbohydrates can relieve low blood sugar. Drink a glass of fruit juice or suck on a hard candy. Follow that up with a more nourishing meal to raise your blood sugar levels. If you often get hypoglycemia, you might need to adjust your diabetes medicine. Or you could eat smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day. This will help keep your blood sugar level steady.

Blood pressure is the force of your blood pushing against blood vessel walls as it circulates through your body. When your blood pressure drops you can have symptoms like dizziness or lightheadedness, and fatigue. Other symptoms include:

• nausea
• thirst
• blurred vision
• fast and shallow breathing
• pale, clammy skin
• trouble concentrating

The following conditions can cause your blood pressure to drop:

• heart problems
• medications
• serious injury
• dehydration
• vitamin deficiencies

Treating these issues can bring your blood pressure back up to normal. Other ways to increase low blood pressure are:

• adding more salt to your diet
• drinking more water to increase your blood volume
• wearing support stockings

Red blood cells carry oxygen to all your organs and tissues. When you have anemia, your body doesn’t have enough red blood cells, or these cells don’t work well enough. A lack of oxygen can make you feel dizzy or tired.

Other signs of anemia are:

• shortness of breath
• weakness
• fast or uneven heartbeat
• headache
• cold hands or feet
• pale skin
• chest pain

Bleeding, nutrient deficiencies, and bone marrow failure are all possible causes of anemia.

Migraines are intense, throbbing headaches that last from a few hours to a few days. Along with the headache, you may experience symptoms that include:

• vision changes, such as seeing flashing lights and colors
• nausea and vomiting
• sensitivity to light and sound
• lightheadedness
• fatigue

People who get migraines can experience dizziness and vertigo, even when they don’t have a headache. The vertigo can last for a few minutes to a few hours.

Avoiding migraine triggers like alcohol, caffeine, and dairy foods is one way to prevent these headaches. You can also take migraine medicines, which come in two forms:

• Preventive medicines like antidepressants and antiseizure drugs prevent a migraine before it starts.
• Abortive medicines like NSAID pain relievers and triptans relieve migraines once they start.

Learn more: The differences between migraines and headaches »

Certain medicines can cause dizziness and fatigue as side effects. These include:

• antidepressants like fluoxetine (Prozac) and trazodone (Desyrel)
• antiseizure drugs such as divalproex (Depakote), gabapentin (Neurontin, Active-PAC with Gabapentin), and pregabalin (Lyrica)
• blood pressure lowering drugs, such as ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers, and diuretics
• muscle relaxants such as cyclobenzaprine (Fexmid, Flexeril) and metaxalone (Skelaxin)
• sleeping pills such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl, Unisom, Sominex), temazepam (Restoril), eszopiclone (Lunesta), and zolpidem (Ambien)

If you’re on one of these medicines and it’s making you dizzy or tired, ask your doctor if you can lower the dose or switch to another drug.

Normally, your heart beats in a familiar “lub-dub” rhythm. When you have an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, your heart beats too slow or too fast. It might also skip beats.

Besides dizziness and fatigue, other symptoms of an arrhythmia include:

• fainting
• shortness of breath
• chest pain

Your doctor can treat heart rhythm problems with drugs like blood thinners or blood pressure medicines. Avoid substances like caffeine, alcohol, and cold medicines. These things can make your heart go out of rhythm.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a condition that causes overwhelming tiredness, even after you’ve slept well. Symptoms of CFS include dizziness and trouble keeping your balance.

You might also have symptoms that include:

• sleep problems
• trouble remembering and concentrating
• muscle or joint pain
• headache
• allergies and sensitivities to foods, medicines, or other substances

CFS can be hard to treat because it’s different for everyone. Your doctor will treat your individual symptoms with therapies like medicine and counseling.

An infection like a cold or the flu can inflame the vestibular nerve in your inner ear. This nerve sends sensory messages to your brain to keep you upright and balanced. Swelling of the vestibular nerve can cause dizziness and vertigo. You might also feel fatigued.

Other symptoms of vestibular neuronitis include:

• nausea and vomiting
• trouble concentrating
• blurred vision

A virus usually causes vestibular neuritis. Antibiotics won’t help, but the dizziness and other symptoms should improve within a few days.

Dehydration is when your body doesn’t have enough fluid. You can become dehydrated if you don’t drink enough water. This is especially true while you’re outside in hot weather or exercising.

Symptoms of dehydration include:

• dizziness
• fatigue
• little to no urine
• confusion

To treat dehydration, drink fluids like water or an electrolyte solution like Gatorade. If you’re severely dehydrated, you may need to go to the hospital for intravenous (IV) fluids.

If you’ve had repeated episodes of dizziness and fatigue, see your doctor to find out what’s causing these symptoms. Call your doctor or go to an emergency room right away if you have more serious symptoms, such as:

• fainting or loss of consciousness
• seizures
• blurred vision or vision loss
• severe vomiting
• heart palpitations
• chest pain
• confusion
• high fever
• trouble speaking

Your outlook depends on what condition is causing your dizziness and fatigue. If you have an infection, it should get better in a few days. Migraines and CFS are chronic. But you can manage them with medicines and other treatments.

In general, here are a few things you can do to prevent dizziness and fatigue:

What to do

• Drink plenty of water throughout the day so you don’t get dehydrated.
• Avoid or limit drinking alcohol.
• When you move from a lying or seated position to standing, get up slowly.

Was this helpful?

To prevent a fall or accident when you’re feeling dizzy, don’t drive or operate heavy machinery. Stay seated or in bed until the dizziness passes.

Read this article in Spanish.

Dizziness and Fatigue: 9 Possible Causes

Many different conditions can make you feel both dizzy and tired. Sometimes these symptoms are temporary, or they might come and go.

Dizziness is a word that describes the sensation of spinning while being off-balance. To explain to your doctor exactly how you feel, you can use these more specific terms:

• disequilibrium is when you feel unsteady
• lightheaded means you feel faint or woozy
• vertigo is a spinning sensation when you aren’t moving

Many different conditions can make you feel both dizzy and tired. Sometimes these symptoms are temporary, or they might come and go. If you often feel dizzy and tired, see your doctor for a diagnosis. Untreated dizziness and fatigue can cause a fall. It can also increase your risk of getting into an accident while driving.

Your body needs sugar, also known as glucose, for energy. When your blood sugar level drops, you can become dizzy, shaky, and tired.

Low blood sugar is often a side effect of insulin and other drugs used to treat diabetes. These drugs lower blood sugar, but if the dose isn’t right your blood sugar can drop too much.

You can also get hypoglycemia if you don’t have diabetes. It can occur if you haven’t eaten in a while or if you drink alcohol without eating.

Other symptoms of low blood sugar are:

• fast heartbeat
• sweating
• shaking
• hunger
• irritability
• confusion

A fast-acting source of carbohydrates can relieve low blood sugar. Drink a glass of fruit juice or suck on a hard candy. Follow that up with a more nourishing meal to raise your blood sugar levels. If you often get hypoglycemia, you might need to adjust your diabetes medicine. Or you could eat smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day. This will help keep your blood sugar level steady.

Blood pressure is the force of your blood pushing against blood vessel walls as it circulates through your body. When your blood pressure drops you can have symptoms like dizziness or lightheadedness, and fatigue. Other symptoms include:

• nausea
• thirst
• blurred vision
• fast and shallow breathing
• pale, clammy skin
• trouble concentrating

The following conditions can cause your blood pressure to drop:

• heart problems
• medications
• serious injury
• dehydration
• vitamin deficiencies

Treating these issues can bring your blood pressure back up to normal. Other ways to increase low blood pressure are:

• adding more salt to your diet
• drinking more water to increase your blood volume
• wearing support stockings

Red blood cells carry oxygen to all your organs and tissues. When you have anemia, your body doesn’t have enough red blood cells, or these cells don’t work well enough. A lack of oxygen can make you feel dizzy or tired.

Other signs of anemia are:

• shortness of breath
• weakness
• fast or uneven heartbeat
• headache
• cold hands or feet
• pale skin
• chest pain

Bleeding, nutrient deficiencies, and bone marrow failure are all possible causes of anemia.

Migraines are intense, throbbing headaches that last from a few hours to a few days. Along with the headache, you may experience symptoms that include:

• vision changes, such as seeing flashing lights and colors
• nausea and vomiting
• sensitivity to light and sound
• lightheadedness
• fatigue

People who get migraines can experience dizziness and vertigo, even when they don’t have a headache. The vertigo can last for a few minutes to a few hours.

Avoiding migraine triggers like alcohol, caffeine, and dairy foods is one way to prevent these headaches. You can also take migraine medicines, which come in two forms:

• Preventive medicines like antidepressants and antiseizure drugs prevent a migraine before it starts.
• Abortive medicines like NSAID pain relievers and triptans relieve migraines once they start.

Learn more: The differences between migraines and headaches »

Certain medicines can cause dizziness and fatigue as side effects. These include:

• antidepressants like fluoxetine (Prozac) and trazodone (Desyrel)
• antiseizure drugs such as divalproex (Depakote), gabapentin (Neurontin, Active-PAC with Gabapentin), and pregabalin (Lyrica)
• blood pressure lowering drugs, such as ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers, and diuretics
• muscle relaxants such as cyclobenzaprine (Fexmid, Flexeril) and metaxalone (Skelaxin)
• sleeping pills such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl, Unisom, Sominex), temazepam (Restoril), eszopiclone (Lunesta), and zolpidem (Ambien)

If you’re on one of these medicines and it’s making you dizzy or tired, ask your doctor if you can lower the dose or switch to another drug.

Normally, your heart beats in a familiar “lub-dub” rhythm. When you have an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, your heart beats too slow or too fast. It might also skip beats.

Besides dizziness and fatigue, other symptoms of an arrhythmia include:

• fainting
• shortness of breath
• chest pain

Your doctor can treat heart rhythm problems with drugs like blood thinners or blood pressure medicines. Avoid substances like caffeine, alcohol, and cold medicines. These things can make your heart go out of rhythm.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a condition that causes overwhelming tiredness, even after you’ve slept well. Symptoms of CFS include dizziness and trouble keeping your balance.

You might also have symptoms that include:

• sleep problems
• trouble remembering and concentrating
• muscle or joint pain
• headache
• allergies and sensitivities to foods, medicines, or other substances

CFS can be hard to treat because it’s different for everyone. Your doctor will treat your individual symptoms with therapies like medicine and counseling.

An infection like a cold or the flu can inflame the vestibular nerve in your inner ear. This nerve sends sensory messages to your brain to keep you upright and balanced. Swelling of the vestibular nerve can cause dizziness and vertigo. You might also feel fatigued.

Other symptoms of vestibular neuronitis include:

• nausea and vomiting
• trouble concentrating
• blurred vision

A virus usually causes vestibular neuritis. Antibiotics won’t help, but the dizziness and other symptoms should improve within a few days.

Dehydration is when your body doesn’t have enough fluid. You can become dehydrated if you don’t drink enough water. This is especially true while you’re outside in hot weather or exercising.

Symptoms of dehydration include:

• dizziness
• fatigue
• little to no urine
• confusion

To treat dehydration, drink fluids like water or an electrolyte solution like Gatorade. If you’re severely dehydrated, you may need to go to the hospital for intravenous (IV) fluids.

If you’ve had repeated episodes of dizziness and fatigue, see your doctor to find out what’s causing these symptoms. Call your doctor or go to an emergency room right away if you have more serious symptoms, such as:

• fainting or loss of consciousness
• seizures
• blurred vision or vision loss
• severe vomiting
• heart palpitations
• chest pain
• confusion
• high fever
• trouble speaking

Your outlook depends on what condition is causing your dizziness and fatigue. If you have an infection, it should get better in a few days. Migraines and CFS are chronic. But you can manage them with medicines and other treatments.

In general, here are a few things you can do to prevent dizziness and fatigue:

What to do

• Drink plenty of water throughout the day so you don’t get dehydrated.
• Avoid or limit drinking alcohol.
• When you move from a lying or seated position to standing, get up slowly.

Was this helpful?

To prevent a fall or accident when you’re feeling dizzy, don’t drive or operate heavy machinery. Stay seated or in bed until the dizziness passes.

Read this article in Spanish.

Treatment of chronic cerebrovascular accident – Stamina Center

Symptoms

Chronic cerebrovascular accident develops gradually. It all starts with a constant feeling of fatigue, unmotivated irritability, insomnia, headaches, dizziness and tinnitus. It becomes difficult for a person to concentrate or remember any information, lack of assembly appears.

It is possible and necessary to get rid of these problems. The Stamina Back and Joint Health Center will help with this.

• About the symptom

• Causes

• Symptoms

• Consequences

• How can we help

• Features of treatment

Make an appointment

About the symptom

Chronic cerebrovascular accident (CCI) is one of the varieties of vascular diseases.

Blood enters the brain through the cervical spine through the main four main arteries: two vertebral – passing in the vertebrae of the neck, two carotid – passing under the muscles. With stiffness and spasms in the neck, blood flow often worsens and this leads to impaired cerebral circulation.

At the same time, a person begins to experience relatively harmless symptoms, which are often attributed to overwork – headache, dizziness, blackout in the eyes.

It is important to respond to the problem in time, because over time these symptoms are gradually replaced by neurological diseases – and this already indicates multiple brain damage.

Causes

• Osteochondrosis
• Hernia of the spine (in the cervical region)
• Scoliosis
• Protrusions in the cervical spine
• Pain in the neck and shoulders
• Genetic predisposition
• Traumatic brain injuries
• Overweight
• Constant stress
• Endocrine diseases

Symptoms

• Headaches, dizziness, tinnitus
• Constant feeling of tiredness
• Distractedness, memory impairment
• Violation of dexterity, accuracy of movement and grip
• General weakness
• Buzzing/whistling sensation in ears

Consequences

The danger of chronic cerebrovascular accident is that for a long time this disease develops smoothly and almost imperceptibly.

At the first stage of the disease, the symptoms are more like chronic fatigue syndrome: a person gets tired quickly, falls asleep and wakes up more difficult, often suffers from headaches. The main differences are sharp mood swings (from irascibility to absent-mindedness) and a slight decrease in memory.

In the second stage, memory loss becomes significant. The gait becomes shaky, and the character changes dramatically: a person perceives information poorly, practically cannot concentrate, becomes irritable and depressive.

The third stage is a harbinger of the most serious disorders: dementia, personality disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, the appearance of blood clots.

How we can help

We use developing exercises, gentle osteopathic techniques and massage to relieve the patient of chronic cerebrovascular accident.

This allows you to deeply improve the metabolism in the brain, normalize blood flow in the brain tissues and stimulate metabolism at the level of neurons, remove clamps and enslavement in the neck.

Treatment features

• Safe, painless and effective methods
• Non-surgical approach
• Virtually no contraindications
• Suitable for all ages and abilities

causes and treatment – health articles

11/10/2022

Annoying tinnitus of both low and high frequency and persistent dizziness are not signs that can be easily dismissed. Sometimes they can signal very serious changes in the body. See a doctor and get diagnosed if you have symptoms such as:

• constant noise, ringing in the ears
• periodically plugs ears
• frequent dizziness, headaches
• blackout
• weakness
• nausea

Causes of tinnitus

Progressive tinnitus causes a number of diseases, the main ones being:

• Meniere’s disease
• sensorineural hearing loss
• cochleovestibulopathy.

Also, tinnitus can occur due to injuries, and due to sudden changes in atmospheric pressure, low blood pressure, sulfur plug, tension of the temporal muscles during stress, problems with dentures.

Sensorineural hearing loss

This disease is caused by pathological damage to the sensory nerve cells of the cochlea, auditory nerve or associative fields of the cerebral cortex. The main symptoms are hearing loss that progresses over time, dizziness, high-pitched tinnitus, unsteady gait, nausea, and vomiting. Sensorineural hearing loss can be acute or chronic. In the first case, the disease develops with increasing intensity, often unilateral hearing loss against the background of headache. In this condition, emergency care is needed, hospitalization, sometimes surgery is necessary. After that, the patient should be on outpatient treatment, as well as patients with a chronic form of the disease in which hearing loss occurs gradually in both ears and slowly progresses.

Meniere’s disease

This is the most severe disease of the inner ear, which is characterized by dizziness, hearing loss, nausea, vomiting, low blood pressure, unsteady gait, sweating. All these symptoms occur in attacks lasting from several hours to several days. They are stopped in a hospital with the help of drug therapy. In the absence of a positive effect, operations are recommended – on the formations of the tympanic cavity, destructive operations on the vestibulocochlear nerve and labyrinth, decompressive – on the labyrinth.

Cochleveostibulopathy against the background of vertebrobasilar insufficiency

The main symptoms of VBI are hearing loss, tinnitus of varying intensity and frequency, dizziness, headaches, memory loss, sleep disturbance.

Diagnosis

What should I do if I constantly hear noise in my ears? With such complaints, you need:

• consult an ENT doctor
• perform an audiological examination
• do an MRI of the brain, cervical spine
• Ultrasonography of brachiocephalic vessels
• EEG
• It will not be superfluous to consult a neurologist

For a complete examination, our clinic has a special diagnostic program for tinnitus

Treatment of tinnitus

Now there are many modern methods of treating diseases of the inner ear, which can cause tinnitus and hearing loss.