Vertigo & Dizziness Treatment in Nevada City & Grass Valley, CA

Vertigo is not a diagnosis — it's a symptom, and it has several very different causes. The most common is BPPV, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, where tiny crystals in the inner ear shift into the wrong canal and send the brain a false signal that the room is rotating. It usually hits with specific head positions: rolling over in bed, looking up at a shelf, bending down to tie a shoe. Unsettling, but also one of the most treatable causes of dizziness there is.

Other cases come from the neck. After a whiplash injury, a concussion, or years of accumulated neck stiffness, the joints and muscles of the cervical spine can send mismatched position signals to the brain — a pattern called cervicogenic dizziness. It tends to feel like floating or unsteadiness rather than true spinning, and it usually comes with neck pain and worsens with head movement or long stretches at a screen.

Many patients arrive having already been through ENT visits, imaging, and bloodwork without a clear answer. A focused exam — positional testing, eye-movement and balance screening, and a cervical spine assessment — usually narrows it down quickly. And when the cause sits outside our scope, such as Meniere's disease, vestibular neuritis, or a central neurological issue, we say so and point you to the right specialist instead of treating you indefinitely.