Symptoms of dizziness in bed at night can be from your neck or from BPPV. In this blog, we will focus on how to tell the difference.
How Long Does Dizziness in Bed at Night Last?
When you feel dizziness In bed at night, make a mental note if it lasts for seconds, minutes, or hours.
The duration of the symptoms is a key to determining root cause. In turn, the suspected root cause dictates the strategy needed to get relief.
Neck-Related Dizziness in Bed at Night: What It Feels Like
If the dizziness in bed at night is from your neck, then the dizziness will likely be continuous until you move your neck into a different position.
After you adjust your head or neck position, dizziness from the neck may continue if your neck is still not happy with the new position, or that may resolve in the new sleeping position.
Is BPPV Causing Your Dizziness?
If the symptoms at night are from BPPV, then they will hit you like a wave after moving into a certain position but then most likely resolve within five minutes of staying in that position.
Occasionally, atypical BPPV may cause dizziness in bed at night lasting for hours but that is statistically uncommon.
Real-Life Example of Nighttime Dizziness from BPPV
When I’m having vertigo symptoms at night, I will typically remain in that position for a few minutes and see if it resolves.
If it’s BPPV, then it will usually settle within a few minutes and then I can go to sleep without moving further. Some BPPV variants do not settle, but typical BPPV settles down after you stop moving.
It is important to do relaxation breathing while you’re waiting for the symptoms to settle down because they can trigger a fight-or-flight response in the middle of the night regardless of the root cause.
If the dizziness doesn’t resolve within a few minutes in a certain position, then I assume it’s my neck and I readjust myself into a different position to relieve the dizziness from my neck.
How to Analyze and Track Dizziness Episodes in Bed at Night
The 3 key pieces of data you need to note for any instance of dizziness in bed at night is the following:
- Onset: What were you doing when you felt it?
- Possible trigger: What were you doing right before you felt it?
- Duration of symptoms: How long do the symptoms last?
The onset, trigger, and duration of dizziness are the key to determining root cause.
Track Onset, Triggers, and Duration
Make note of when you felt the symptoms, what you were doing when you felt it, what you were doing right before that, and how long the symptoms lasted. Then you and your doctor can begin to sort through the root cause.
The more that you can delineate between dizziness from your neck and dizziness from your vestibular system, the better you will be able to respond in the moment if you experience a flareup on any given night.
Distinguishing between lingering, mild, or subtle BPPV and cervical dizziness is an ongoing effort. It’s good for people with dizziness in bed at night to keep learning, since the strategies to relieve those two different root causes vary.
Even though this blog focused on distinguishing two specific causes of dizziness in bed at night, there are other possible causes of dizziness in bed at night as well. Talk to your doctor about your case.
Learn more about strategies to relieve cervical dizziness here.
Use this blog to search for a vertigo doctor if you want to get checked for BPPV.
Disclaimer
This blog is provided for informational and educational purposes only. The content and any comments by Dr. Kim Bell, DPT are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. The details of any case mentioned in this post represent a typical patient that Dr. Bell might see and do not describe the circumstances of a specific individual.
