Vestibular Therapy in Abilene
The room tilts when you roll over in bed, or the floor stops feeling reliable when you turn your head, and being told it is just vertigo has not made any of it stop.
What is vestibular therapy?
Your balance is not one system. It is three, working together: the inner ear, the eyes, and the position sensors in your joints and feet. Your brain compares all three every second you are upright. When the inner ear stops sending accurate information, or stops sending it in step with the other two, that mismatch is what you experience as spinning, floating, lightheadedness, or a world that lags a beat behind when you turn your head. Vestibular therapy retrains that system. The evaluation comes first, because dizziness is a symptom, not a diagnosis, and the right treatment depends entirely on what is producing it. Your therapist tests your eye movement, watches how your eyes behave when your head changes position, checks your balance on different surfaces, studies how you walk, and asks careful questions about what brings the dizziness on and how long it lasts. BPPV, where crystals have shifted into a canal of the inner ear where they do not belong, is the most common cause of true spinning. It is treated with repositioning maneuvers that guide those crystals back out, and for many people it resolves in a very small number of visits. Vestibular hypofunction, where one or both inner ears are underperforming, is a different problem and gets graded exercise that pushes your brain to recalibrate around the signal it is actually receiving.
Post-concussion dizziness and motion sensitivity get their own approach again, built on controlled, repeated exposure to the movements that provoke your symptoms, dosed so your system adapts instead of being flooded. The instinct with dizziness is to hold still and avoid whatever sets it off. That instinct is completely understandable and it usually makes things worse over time, because a balance system that is never challenged never recalibrates. Dr. Adam Burns has additional vestibular rehabilitation training, and Angie Hoerner is trained in vestibular rehab as well as balance and fall prevention. You work one on one with your therapist, start to finish. You are not handed to an aide and you are not left to sort this out alone.
Who it's for.
If the room spins, the floor feels unreliable, or you have quietly stopped driving, bending down or turning your head quickly, an evaluation is the fastest way to find out which system is misfiring. Most people in Kansas can start without a physician referral, and we check your plan before your first visit.
Spinning when you move your head
You roll over in bed, tip your head back at the sink, or look up at a high shelf, and the room lurches for a few seconds before settling. That pattern points to BPPV, crystals loose in a canal of the inner ear. Repositioning maneuvers guide them back where they belong, and for a lot of people this resolves in a very small number of visits.
Dizziness that never fully goes away
Not spinning exactly. More a constant unsteadiness, a foggy floating, or the sense that the world takes a beat to catch up when you turn. That pattern fits an inner ear that is underperforming, and it responds to graded exercise that trains your brain to work accurately with the signal it is getting.
Concussion, motion sensitivity and unsteadiness
Dizziness that started after a head injury. Nausea in the car, in a grocery aisle, or scrolling on a screen. Or balance that has eroded so gradually you only noticed when you started reaching for furniture. All of it is trainable, and the training is specific, which is exactly why the evaluation comes before the exercises.
What to expect in a session.
Some of what happens in a vestibular evaluation will briefly make you dizzy. That is not a mistake, it is how we find the cause, and your therapist tells you before it happens.
History and testing
Your therapist asks precise questions. What sets it off, how long it lasts, whether it spins or sways, what you have stopped doing because of it. Then the testing: eye movement, head movement, balance on firm and soft surfaces, and how you walk. Some positions may briefly bring your symptoms on, and that is the information we need.
Treatment matched to the cause
If it is BPPV, your therapist takes you through a repositioning maneuver, moving your head and body through a set sequence that guides the crystals out of the canal. If it is hypofunction, motion sensitivity or post-concussion dizziness, you start graded gaze and balance exercises instead, dosed to challenge your system without flattening you.
Home program and re-testing
You leave with a short daily program, because your brain recalibrates through repetition and most of that repetition happens between visits rather than in them. You also get clear instructions on anything to be careful with straight afterward. At the next visit we re-test, and the result tells us whether to progress you or change direction.
If your dizziness is severe or unpredictable, bring someone to drive you to the first visit. Testing and treatment can provoke symptoms briefly, and while that usually settles quickly, it is not something you want to sit through and then drive home from unprepared. Tell your therapist about any neck problems, a recent head injury, or new symptoms such as double vision, severe headache or weakness, because those change what is appropriate and what needs to be looked at first.
Used this service 3 different times, they helped me resolve my issues each time and everyone there was very friendly and helpful.
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