I often feel dizzy. Is it cervical spondylosis?

Netizen question: I am 62 years old and have been feeling dizzy recently, like the feeling of “the world is spinning around”. Do I have cervical spondylosis?

When it comes to dizziness, many people will first think of cervical spondylosis.

In fact, in clinical practice, among patients with vertigo symptoms, less than 1% are ultimately diagnosed with cervical spondylosis.

The following are common causes of dizziness in the elderly:

Triggered by changes in body position, such as changing from sitting or lying to standing or walking;

Associated with cerebrovascular ischemia, such as stroke or vertebrobasilar insufficiency.

In addition, there is a common clinical phenomenon: when people feel dizzy, they think they have cervical spondylosis and rush to the orthopedics department. After an X-ray, they find that there is something wrong with the cervical spine. They then think that the dizziness must be caused by cervical spondylosis, which conceals the real cause of the disease and delays treatment.

Therefore, it is recommended that you describe the specific symptoms clearly when seeing a doctor, so as to provide the doctor with more sufficient basis for judgment.

How to describe it?

You can consider these aspects:

Before the attack: Are there any signs, such as a headache first?

When it happens: How long does it last? What does it feel like? How often does it happen?

Other symptoms: whether other discomforts occur at the same time, such as headache, tinnitus, inability to walk in a straight line, etc.

With these specific descriptions as reference, doctors can choose targeted examination items, such as brain examination, vascular examination, hearing or cervical spine examination, etc.

By the way, some hospitals have set up “vertigo centers”, so you might as well give it priority when you go there for treatment.