Experiencing dizziness when moving your eyes can be an unsettling sensation, suggesting a disconnect within the body’s balance system. This often signals how intertwined our visual system is with balance and spatial awareness. Understanding these reasons can provide clarity and help address symptoms.
How Your Body Maintains Balance
Maintaining balance and spatial orientation is a complex process, relying on information integration from three primary sensory systems: the visual system, the vestibular system, and proprioception. The visual system helps us orient ourselves by perceiving our position relative to the environment, allowing for adjustments. Meanwhile, the vestibular system, located in the inner ear, detects head movements and gravity, providing information about orientation and motion. It plays a role in stabilizing gaze during head movements through the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR).
Proprioception involves sensory receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints that send feedback about body position and movement. These three systems work together to create a ‘map’ of the world, enabling adjustments for postural stability and coordinated movement. When there is a conflict or dysfunction in these systems, the brain may receive inaccurate signals, leading to dizziness or disequilibrium.
Eye-Related Causes of Dizziness
Dizziness with eye movement can stem from issues within the visual system or how the brain processes visual information. Eye strain or fatigue is a common cause, often from prolonged visual tasks or uncorrected vision problems. Overworked eye muscles can become tired and sore, leading to headaches and dizziness. This strain can also trigger tension in the head, neck, and shoulders, contributing to dizziness.
Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD) is a condition where the eyes are slightly misaligned and struggle to work together to send a single, clear image to the brain. The brain attempts to force eye muscles to realign, creating a continuous cycle of misalignment and realignment that strains them, causing dizziness, headaches, and nausea. Convergence insufficiency, a type of BVD, means the eyes cannot effectively work together to focus on nearby objects.
Visual vertigo, or visually induced dizziness, occurs when overwhelming visual stimuli trigger dizziness and unsteadiness. This can happen in environments with complex patterns, moving screens, or busy crowds, when the brain receives too much visual input. This sensory conflict between the visual, vestibular, and musculoskeletal systems can lead to over-reliance on vision for balance, causing symptoms.
Inner Ear and Brain Connections
Dizziness with eye movement can also originate from the vestibular system in the inner ear or neurological conditions affecting brain regions that control eye movements and balance. Vestibular disorders, involving problems with inner ear structures or the central nervous system processing balance, cause dizziness and vertigo. Conditions like labyrinthitis or vestibular neuritis, involving inflammation of the inner ear, can disrupt balance signals and lead to dizziness that worsens with head and eye movements.
Nystagmus, characterized by involuntary, rapid eye movements, is a source of dizziness when moving the eyes. These uncontrolled eye movements can cause a sensation that the world is spinning, leading to dizziness, vertigo, or blurred vision. Nystagmus can be a symptom of various underlying issues, including inner ear problems, certain medications, head injuries, or neurological conditions like multiple sclerosis, stroke, or brain tumors.
Vestibular migraine, a type of migraine that may or may not include a headache, often causes episodes of dizziness or imbalance. Eye movement abnormalities, such as positional nystagmus, can be present during episodes or symptom-free intervals. Broader neurological conditions, such as stroke or traumatic brain injury, can disrupt the pathways in the brain that coordinate eye movement and balance, leading to dizziness.
Knowing When to Seek Professional Help
While occasional, mild dizziness is not a cause for concern, persistent or worsening dizziness, especially when accompanied by certain symptoms, warrants medical evaluation. If dizziness recurs, starts suddenly, disrupts daily life, or lasts long without a clear cause, consult a healthcare professional.
Immediate medical attention is recommended if new, severe dizziness or vertigo occurs alongside other symptoms. These symptoms include:
Sudden numbness or weakness in the face, arms, or legs
Difficulty speaking or understanding speech
Trouble walking
New double vision or changes in hearing
Severe headache
Confusion
These symptoms could indicate a serious underlying condition, such as a stroke or other neurological issue, requiring prompt diagnosis and treatment.