Can Medications Help Treat Dizziness?

Sara Hoffman, PharmD
·6 min read

Medically reviewed by Alex Yampolsky, PharmD

Dizziness is a broad term encompassing a range of sensations, such as feeling faint, weak, unsteady, lightheaded, or off-balance. Experts separate dizziness into several main categories, including:

  • Vertigo: A false sense of motion with or without a spinning sensation

  • Disequilibrium: Feeling wobbly or off-balance

  • Presyncope: Feeling faint, close to losing consciousness or blacking out

  • Lightheadedness: Feeling faint or disconnected from the environment

Dizziness can sometimes be treated with medications. The type of medication selected will be based largely on which of the above types of dizziness you’re experiencing, as they often have root causes that are quite different. It is best to prevent or treat these causes to avoid unnecessary use of dizziness medication.

This article will discuss how to treat dizziness, the potential causes of the symptoms, and available medications.

<p>Getty Images / FG Trade</p>

Getty Images / FG Trade

Treating Dizziness With Medication

Dizziness is a broad term that covers feelings of unsteadiness, lightheadedness, being off-balance, or feeling like your head is spinning. Vertigo is the most common category of dizziness, where you feel a false sense of motion or a spinning sensation.

Sometimes, medications can be used to treat dizziness, including vertigo. However, they are most often treating the root cause of your dizziness to prevent it from happening rather than directly treating the symptom itself.

One potential cause of vertigo is benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, which may be treated with Antivert (meclizine) and certain physical maneuvers through physical therapy.

Other causes are vestibular neuritis, which can be treated with a glucocorticoid steroid like methylprednisolone, and migrainous vertigo, where intense migraines result in dizziness and are often accompanied by aura or photophobia. Prevention is the best treatment for migrainous vertigo, which is often where 5-HT3 receptor agonists (triptans) come into play.

Causes of Dizziness

While medications may be used to improve dizziness, your healthcare provider may recommend adjusting or even taking away a part of your medication regimen, as many medications have the potential to cause dizziness through different mechanisms. These include the following types of drugs discussed below.

Heart medications:

Other medications:

  • Antipsychotics like chlorpromazine and Clozaril (clozapine)

  • Opioids like oxycodone, morphine, and hydrocodone

  • Muscle relaxants like Lioresal (baclofen), cyclobenzaprine, Robaxin (methocarbamol), Zanaflex (tizanidine)

  • Tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline and doxepin

  • Phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors like Viagra (sildenafil) and Cialis (tadalafil)

  • Urinary anticholinergics like oxybutynin

Apart from medications, dizziness can also be caused by medical conditions:

  • Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo occurs when an otolith (a tiny bony structure in your inner ear) becomes loose and causes a false sense of motion

  • Hyperventilation syndrome, which involves taking excessively large breaths or breathing too quickly, can disrupt your acid-base balance and cause lightheadedness

  • Ménière’s disease, which occurs when there is excess fluid in the inner ear

  • Migrainous vertigo (migraines that can cause dizziness), often accompanied by aura, photophobia, or phonophobia (worsened by light or sound)

  • Orthostatic hypotension, or a quick change in position from sitting to standing that drops your blood pressure and may induce a feeling of almost passing out

  • Parkinson's disease causes an imbalance or dysfunction in how a person walks and may result in dizziness and/or falls

  • Peripheral neuropathy, which involves decreased sensations in the legs and feet that may cause a person to be unaware of when their feet touch the ground, leading to imbalance and falls

Choosing a Treatment for Dizziness

Your healthcare provider should go through a series of questions about your symptoms, perform physical examinations, and review your complete medication list. This will help identify the cause of your dizziness and determine the best solution.

Most categories of dizziness are treatable by removing or adjusting the medication causing the dizziness or by performing certain maneuvers that may reverse positional causes of dizziness.

When none of these avenues work, medications may be necessary to treat the dizziness directly or the condition causing it. A few classes and examples used include:

  • Antivert (meclizine), an antihistamine that can help stabilize the vestibular system–the sensory system responsible for creating a sense of balance and orientation

  • Methylprednisolone, a steroid to help control swelling of the inner ear that comes with vestibular neuritis

  • 5HT3 receptor agonists, or triptans, such as Imitrex (sumatriptan) or Zomig (zolmitriptan), to treat migraines that can lead to vertigo

  • Orvaten (midodrine), an alpha-1 agonist that can help treat hypotension (low blood pressure) associated with dizziness

  • Fludrocortisone, a mineralocorticoid that helps maintain steady blood pressure through fluid and sodium retention

Are There Over-the-Counter Medications for Dizziness?

Most of the above mentioned medications require a prescription, as they are often prescribed for reasons that a healthcare provider needs to determine.

Dramamine (dimenhydrinate) is an over-the-counter (OTC) product for motion sickness. You would typically take it before a bumpy boat, car, or helicopter ride. Meclizine is also available OTC as several brand-name products, including Dramamine Less Drowsy or Bonine Motion Sickness.

Another solution is a motion sickness patch that can be placed behind the ear or around the belly button and worn for up to three days. Some of these patches contain ingredients like mint and ginger that slowly get released and absorbed into your skin and may help treat symptoms of motion sickness.

An anticholinergic drug called Transderm Scop (scopolamine) is also available in a three-day patch and helps calm the muscles in your stomach and intestines.

Still, most OTC medications will not do much for dizziness caused by problems except for occasional motion sickness, often with a clear cause like a bumpy ride or intense movement. For dizziness beyond this description, it’s best to see your healthcare provider in person so that they can pinpoint and help resolve the specific cause of your dizziness.

Coping With Dizziness

Dealing with dizziness can be frustrating because sometimes it seems to come on without cause. It's normal to experience minor dizziness from time to time, like when standing up quickly after sitting down for a long time or on a bumpy boat or car ride. Moderate to severe dehydration can also cause dizziness.

Outside of these frequent causes, the best way to cope is to find the root cause or trigger of your dizziness and address that problem. Going to see your healthcare provider and doing a thorough history of your other medical conditions and medications can often help pinpoint the cause of your dizziness and help you take the right steps toward a solution.

Summary

OTC dizziness medications may be helpful on some occasions, like preventing motion sickness and associated dizziness. However, they won’t be useful if the cause of your dizziness is due to something else, such as an inner ear issue, another medication you’re taking, or a bad migraine.

Most medications used for these issues treat or prevent the causes of dizziness rather than the dizziness itself. For that reason, a visit to your healthcare provider is your best bet, as it is often necessary for them to perform a thorough medical history covering medication use and potentially some physical examinations to determine the cause and the best resolution for your dizziness.

Read the original article on Verywell Health.