Earthquake and Vertigo

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In Brief

Vertigo is a false sense of movement: you feel that you or your surroundings are spinning or swaying.
It is a symptom that can accompany many conditions, not a disease in itself; it can last from seconds to days and can recur.
As after traumas such as earthquakes, recurrent vertigo attacks can also lead to anxiety, fear of the next attack and depression.
Because it can be linked to ear, brain, heart-vessel and metabolic diseases, its cause should always be investigated.

⚠️ Emergency: If dizziness comes with slurred speech, a drooping face, weakness in an arm or leg, double vision or being unable to walk, do not wait – call 112 (emergency).

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How long can we endure a situation like this? The images you're watching aren't from a movie. They're real, real scenes from life. One of the most powerful natural phenomena that occurs almost every day in different parts of the world.

Earthquakes!

Earthquakes have devastating effects, both physically and psychologically. Many of us have experienced earthquakes at some point in our lives, and many of us still carry the resulting psychological trauma. Experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event like an earthquake, which threatens a person's life and physical integrity, results in psychiatric symptoms encompassing cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social disorders. These psychological effects, described as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), include anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic symptoms. Normally, these symptoms that appear after trauma decrease and disappear over time. However, sometimes the mental health problems arising from trauma can be permanent. This natural event, whose effects last for many years, is etched in memories as a thin line between life and death.

In human physiology, there is a symptom similar to an earthquake that triggers post-traumatic stress disorder, leading to numerous psychiatric effects ranging from anticipatory anxiety to major depression, significantly negatively impacting life, and appearing as a symptom of many diseases.

Vertigo!

Vertigo is essentially an illusion of movement. It is caused by involuntary eye movements resulting from erroneous stimuli originating from the balance system (vestibular system), and consequently, a sensation of spinning or the perception that the physical world is in motion. Rather than a disease in itself, it is a symptom accompanying many illnesses. This symptom can last from a few seconds to several days and can recur repeatedly depending on the illness. Because the symptom itself creates a sensation similar to an earthquake, it can be a precursor to many psychiatric disorders.

Vertigo is just one of the symptoms of balance disorders, and many other symptoms are encompassed under balance disorders. Vertigo can also be defined as the medical equivalent of true dizziness. It can involve circular or up-and-down movement of the surroundings. As I mentioned earlier, this movement is an illusion of motion; that is, it is a perceptual state that does not actually exist.

Vertigo can be associated with various diseases of the ear and central nervous system, as well as many metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.

I will try to explain the diseases that cause vertigo and their current treatments in detail in subsequent videos.