How to Manage Your Balance Disorder?

Balance disorders can have a huge impact on your daily life and wellbeing so it is essential to find effective ways of managing your condition. With the support of your ENT specialist it is often possible to prevent your symptoms from coming back or to find ways of relieving them when they do appear. You will also be able to find ways of managing your condition to reduce the impact that it has on your daily life, for example by avoiding activities that could trigger your symptoms.

Understand the Impact of Your Balance Disorder

One of the difficulties of living with a balance disorder is that we often aren’t aware of how much of an impact it can have on us. The people around us can also be unaware of the effects of balance disorders so it can be important to explain these effects to them too.

A balance disorder could:

• Be triggered by specific environments or activities, so you might need to avoid these
• Make some tasks at work harder or riskier, so you may need to ask for adjustments to be made
• Affect your driving so it should be reported to the DVLA
• Put you at risk of injuring yourself if you fall or of dropping anything that you are holding, so you may need to adjust the way you do certain things to avoid these risks

Thinking about the effects of your balance disorder can be a good first step to finding ways to avoid or minimise these issues. Making some simple changes in your daily life can help to prevent episodes from being triggered or to reduce the risks if your symptoms do appear. It is vital to ensure that you and those around you will be as safe as possible during an episode.

Get Help for Your Balance Disorder

Since balance disorders can have such a significant impact on every aspect of your life, it is vital to seek help if you are affected. Treatments are available that can make a big difference to your symptoms. Sometimes it is possible to prevent balance symptoms from happening, but there are also treatments that can tackle your symptoms when they do appear.

Depending on the cause of your balance problems, your doctor might recommend:

• Medication to relieve symptoms such as nausea during an episode
• Diet or lifestyle changes to prevent your symptoms
• Positioning procedures that you can use when your symptoms appear
• Vestibular rehabilitation to improve your balance and prevent falls
• Surgery to tackle the causes of some kinds of balance disorders

It is also important to talk to your doctor about the impact that your balance disorder is having on you so that you can get the support you need.

Take an Active Part in Managing Your Balance Disorder

Balance disorders aren’t always something that your doctor can easily treat by prescribing medication. Even if your symptoms can be halted during an episode, you may still need to make changes to your daily life in order to reduce the chances that they will come back again. When you are diagnosed with a balance disorder, you will often need to take charge of managing it, with the support of your doctor.

Managing balance disorder often involves recognising triggers and making changes in your daily life. Since you are the expert on how your balance disorder affects you, this is one area of treatment where you will need to take control. Your doctor can help you to identify triggers, but you are the only person who will be able to draw connections between factors such as caffeine, certain foods, stress or lack of sleep and when your symptoms appear. You may need to make changes to your lifestyle to avoid these triggers or to reduce the impact of your balance disorder.

Another area where you will need to take an active role in managing your balance disorder is in treatments such as vestibular rehabilitation. If your doctor recommends this type of treatment, you will undergo a personalised exercise programme to improve your balance. You will need to practice these techniques regularly in order to generate the best effects.

Managing your balance disorder can take a range of different treatments and strategies, but when you work together with your ENT specialist the results can be great.