Balance Problems

WHEN TO SEE YOUR DOCTOR

* You also have a sudden change in your hearing or ringing in your ears.

* Your ears feel clogged all the time.

* You feel nauseated or lose your balance and fall.

What Your Symptom Is Telling You

In your dreams, you nimbly stroll across Niagara Falls on a high wire. But in reality, you're about as steady on your feet as Woody Allen dancing Swan Lake in a tutu.

What's going on here? Normally, your eyes, inner ears, muscles, brain and nerves work in conjunction with each other to maintain you in an upright position as you go about your daily business. You hardly notice this finely tuned collaboration, but once it's disrupted, you experience balance problems.

A multitude of ailments can send you reeling, including ear disorders, allergies, muscle weakness, vision problems, arthritis and stroke.

Symptom Relief

In many cases your sense of balance can be regained with a few simple adjustments.

Watch what you eat. Some foods and food additives trigger allergic reactions that can affect your sense of balance. "I have a particular sensitivity to monosodium glutamate (MSG). It causes me to have some breathing problems, but sometimes it also causes some unsteadiness," says Ronald Amedee, M.D., associate professor of head and neck surgery at Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans. If you suspect a food allergy may be contributing to your balance problem, try eliminating that food from your diet and check with your doctor about it, advises Dr. Amedee.

Question your medications. Some drugs have balance problems as a possible side effect. Ask your physician to review any medications you may be taking—both prescription and over-the-counter types. He may be able to suggest alternatives.

Shy away from alcohol. "Alcohol creates a sensation in the inner ear similar to what astronauts feel while floating weightless in space," Dr. Amedee says. "If you drink regularly and to excess, you're going to have a problem with your balance. The easiest way to treat that problem is to cut your alcohol consumption."

Give coffee the cold shoulder. Coffee constricts blood vessels and drastically reduces blood flow to the brain. "We routinely tell our patients who have balance disorders to cut back on their coffee consumption," says Dennis O'Leary, Ph.D., director of the Balance Center at the University of Southern California University Hospital in Los Angeles. "One or two eight-ounce cups of coffee is fine; five or six is not."

Stroll away from it. Some people have difficulty maintaining their balance because they have weak muscles. "They know what they need to do to keep their balance, but they just don't have the strength to do it," says Peter Roland, M.D., an otologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "Doing weight training and some form of cardiovascular exercise, such as aerobics, walking or riding a stationary bike, is terribly important for people, particularly the elderly, who want to regain their ability to maintain their balance."

Use it or lose it. Regular exercise also may help your body's balance system adapt and heal itself. "You should try to do any activity where you are moving and trying to keep your balance at the same time," says Jim Buskirk, a physical therapist at the Dizziness and Balance Center in Wilmette, Illinois. "Racquet sports like tennis are especially good because they develop hand/eye coordination and force you to focus on a moving object."

Practice walking on soft surfaces. The softer the surface that you walk on, the more difficult it is to maintain your balance, Dr. O'Leary says. If you practice walking on a piece of foam rubber, thick carpet or even a mattress, you might learn how to stand more erect or plant your feet differently so you feel more stable when walking on all types of surfaces, he says. If you attempt this, you should have a person standing by to catch you in case you fall.

Create a safe haven. Safety begins at home and that's particularly true for people with balance problems. Slick surfaces are dangerous, so remove scatter rugs and avoid polished floors, Dr. O'Leary says. Get a night-light and make sure your stairways are equipped with railings. To help keep your balance while showering, keep your eyes open.

Use your imagination. Imagery or visualization can help you learn to regain your balance, says Dennis Gersten, M.D., a San Diego psychiatrist and publisher of Atlantis: The Imagery Newsletter. To try it, sit in a chair and take a few deep breaths to relax. Then close your eyes and imagine that you're in a room with two poles on the floor forming a big X. Up through the middle of the X is a vertical pole that you are standing next to. "In your imagination, stand at the center of these three poles and try to maintain your balance," Dr. Gersten says. "Every time you move or fall off of center, step right back to the center and rebalance. Keep practicing this until maintaining your balance becomes an effortless task in your mind."

See also Dizziness; Walking Difficulty