Patients often don’t only suffer from vertigo alone but also present with additional symptoms. Certain accompanying symptoms point to certain causes. Therefore, describing the accompanying symptoms is important for any diagnosis.
Severe vegetative (affecting the involuntary nervous system) accompanying symptoms, such as nausea or breaking into sweats can point to a disorder of the balance system itself.
Spontaneously occurring migraine vertigo often goes along with a heightened sensitivity to light and noise. Light and noise can be also triggers with this type of vertigo.
The rotational vertigo with Menière's disease is typically associated with impaired hearing and ringing (tinnitus) in one ear. Also, ear fullness can be an accompanying symptom with Menière’s disease.
The apparent vibrating or trembling of an object you fix with your eyes on is called oscillopsy. This phenomenon also occurs with e.g. vestibular neuritis.
In contrast, sometime the eyeballs themselves might tremble. Such a nystagmus (eye tremor) can be found in e.g. benign positional paroxyxsmal vertigo (BPPV) and neuropathia vestibularis or vestibular neuritis. Here, your physician will carefully examine the type and direction of such an eye tremor, since it may vary, depending on the disease.
Rapid heartbeat and anxiety attacks suggest an emotional or mental (psychogenic) connection with depressions or phobias (somatoform vertigo).
Black spots before your eyes to the point of a collapse of the circulatory system (syncope) suggest a drop in blood pressure upon getting up (orthostatic vertigo) or cardiac arrhythmia.
Problems with talking or swallowing as accompanying symptoms of vertigo might be indicative of MS or a stroke.
