Vestibular Injury: The Little-Known Culprit Behind Anxiety, Brain Fog, ADHD, Hypersensitivity, Anxiety and Emotional Imbalance.
- Monica Naturopath
- 7 hours ago
- 9 min read
Imagine losing your ability to tell where you are in space. Not in the philosophical sense, but in the literal sense: your brain no longer receives reliable information about where "up" is, how to stay balanced, or whether you're moving or still. This is the reality for people with vestibular injuries—and it's more than just feeling dizzy.
Vestibular injuries disrupt one of the most fundamental systems in the human body: the internal GPS that keeps us upright, balanced, and oriented. And the symptoms? They can look like anxiety, memory loss, sleep disruption, sensory overload, and yes, sometimes panic attacks in the middle of the night.
Let’s break down the science—and the human experience—of vestibular dysfunction.
Three Systems, One Job: Knowing Where You Are
The brain uses input from three systems to determine your orientation in space:
The Vestibular System: Inside your inner ears lie semicircular canals that detect motion and position changes.
Visual Input: Your eyes tell you where the horizon is and help coordinate balance with what you see.
Proprioceptive Feedback: Sensors in the neck (especially C1 and C2) and joints in the legs give feedback about your body’s position relative to gravity.
For everything to work seamlessly, all three systems must agree. If they don’t, the brain defaults to the most reliable inputs—and ignores the rest. In the case of a vestibular injury, the brain often disregards the ears altogether.
One ear might say you're upright, the other says you’re tilted. The brain throws its hands up and shifts responsibility to the eyes and proprioceptors. That’s where the trouble begins.
What Causes Vestibular Injuries?
Vestibular injuries can result from a variety of incidents:
Head trauma (concussions, car accidents, falls)
Whiplash or cervical spine injury (especially C1-C2)
Air pressure trauma (e.g. airbags, pressure waves)
Viral infections (like vestibular neuritis)
Ligament laxity in hypermobility conditions (e.g., Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS))
In EDS patients especially, there's a suspected link between overly lax ligaments in the inner ear and increased vestibular dysfunction. Loose ligaments may allow too much movement in the semicircular canals, confusing the brain about the body's position.
When the Brain Gives Up on the Ears
When the brain stops trusting vestibular input, it compensates by leaning more heavily on visual and mechanical (proprioceptive) data. This coping mechanism causes major stress during visually complex tasks—think shopping at Costco, navigating crowds, driving, or working on a computer.
That’s why vestibular patients often:
Avoid grocery stores or big store retailers
Feel uncomfortable in shopping malls, concerts, stadiums and crowded events
Experience mental fatigue from visual overload
Get nauseated or disoriented in environments without a visible horizon
It’s not “just dizziness.” The more common symptoms include:
Memory loss
Fatigue
Brain fog
Sleep disturbances
Anxiety and panic (especially during sleep)
Disorientation and disequilibrium
A feeling of fullness in one or both ears
Trouble concentrating or reading
Why Nighttime Panic Attacks Are a Clue
Vestibular patients often wake up startled in the middle of the night—sweating, heart racing, gasping for breath. This isn’t random anxiety.
Here’s why it happens:
At night, visual input disappears (eyes are closed, it's dark).
Proprioceptors aren’t gravity-loaded when lying down.
The only input left is from the vestibular system—which the brain doesn’t trust.
The "lizard brain" (primitive brainstem) panics from the lack of spatial feedback and jolts the person awake with a panic response.
This specific kind of panic during sleep is a hallmark of vestibular dysfunction.
Saccadic Pursuit: The Subtle Eye Problem with Big Impacts
A healthy vestibular system supports smooth eye tracking or 'pursuit', where the eyes track moving objects fluidly. In a vestibular-injured brain, the eyes struggle to maintain this smooth motion. Instead, they jerk and bounce—this is called saccadic pursuit.
It’s not always visible, but it causes major problems:
Fatigue during screen time
Difficulty reading (especially tracking across lines)
Motion sensitivity (e.g., traffic, scrolling)
Memory issues from disrupted visual-motor processing
Patients might say:“I read the same paragraph three times and still can’t remember what it said.”“After my head injury, I can’t handle computers.”“I get exhausted just looking at my screen.”
Weather Sensitivity and Air Pressure Changes
Another clue pointing to vestibular issues is barometric pressure sensitivity.
The Inner Ear Is Pressure-Sensitive
The vestibular system—including the semicircular canals and the endolymphatic sacs—is filled with fluid and encased in a delicate membrane system that responds to changes in external barometric pressure.
When the air pressure drops—before a rainstorm, at high altitudes, or in elevators—vestibular symptoms often flare:
Worse fatigue
Memory lapses
Ear fullness
Light-headedness
Increased anxiety
On high-pressure days (like before a thunderstorm), the external pressure can help stabilise the inner ear structures, especially in people with:
Endolymphatic fistulas (tiny tears or leaks)
Inner ear concussions
Hydrops (excess fluid)
Or laxity in the membranes (as in Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome)
When external pressure is high, it helps contain the inner ear fluid, reducing its movement and minimizing abnormal vestibular signals.
Temporary Relief from Disequilibrium
Patients often feel more grounded and less disoriented right before a thunderstorm for this reason:
The increased air pressure "holds" the inner ear fluid in place, leading to more consistent and symmetrical signals from both ears to the brain.
This reduces the mismatch between the vestibular, visual, and proprioceptive systems—which is the core issue in vestibular dysfunction.
The "Eye Blink" Phenomenon and Pressure Integrity
In conditions like semicircular canal dehiscence, people sometimes hear strange internal sounds (like their eyes blinking) because a small fracture allows cerebrospinal fluid pressure to affect the ear. High atmospheric pressure can compress this leak, dampening the symptom.
Nervous System Downregulation via Sensory Input
Thunderstorms bring:
Low light
Steady barometric trends
White noise (rain, thunder)
These environmental cues can actually be soothing to a hypersensitized nervous system, reducing the cognitive and emotional load on the brain. Some vestibular patients report:
Fewer panic symptoms
Less fatigue
A paradoxical sense of calm
It may seem counterintuitive, but the pre-storm environment often provides predictable sensory input, which helps the brain focus less on its internal imbalance.
Memory Loss, “Fibro Fog,” and the Relational Database
One of the most disabling effects of vestibular injury is impaired memory and cognitive function. The inner ear plays a vital role in the movement of information from short-term to intermediate-term and long-term memory. When vestibular input is disrupted, this transfer fails.
This is especially common in fibromyalgia patients or those with chronic fatigue, often dismissed as “fibro fog.” But for many, it’s a vestibular injury at the root.
A poignant case:
A patient can undertake vestibular testing on Monday, and by Wednesday, have no recollection of it—only fragments like “brick building,” “white hallway.” The day had simply vanished from his memory, never making it to long-term memory.
Diagnosis and Hope
Diagnosing vestibular injuries takes persistence and often involves:
Vestibular Injury Questionnaire - BVSS
Functional optometry (prism lenses to recalibrate vision)
Physical assessments (eye tracking, balance with eyes closed)
Key screening questions include:
Do you wake up frequently at night?
Do you get anxious in crowded, busy places?
Do you have difficulty with reading, memory, or concentration?
Do symptoms worsen in elevators, airplanes, or rainy weather?
Do you get panicky while sleeping or driving?
These answers can direct patients toward a vestibular enquiry —a topic many never knew they needed to explore.
Common Misdiagnoses - What a Vestibular Injury Is NOT
Vestibular injuries are frequently misdiagnosed, often because their symptoms overlap with several other neurological, psychiatric, and systemic conditions. Many healthcare providers are not trained to recognize subtle vestibular dysfunction, and patients may not describe their experiences using traditional language like "dizziness" or "vertigo." Instead, they report fatigue, anxiety, memory loss, discomfort in crowds, and disorientation—which can easily be misunderstood.
Here are the most common misdiagnoses:
1. Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Panic Disorder
Vestibular injury can cause:
Panic attacks (especially in visually complex environments or during sleep)
Heightened sensory sensitivity
Restlessness in crowded spaces (Costco, malls)
Fear or avoidance behavior (agoraphobia-like)
Why it's mistaken:
Symptoms like a racing heart, shortness of breath, and emotional overwhelm mimic classic anxiety. But unlike true anxiety disorders, the panic occurs in predictable, environmental contexts—like grocery shopping or darkness during sleep—due to sensory disorientation, not psychological triggers.
2. Depression
Symptoms like:
Chronic fatigue
Trouble concentrating
Sleep disturbances
Memory loss
Social withdrawal
Why it's mistaken:
When a vestibular patient feels disoriented, uncomfortable in public, and can't engage in normal routines, their functional impairment looks like depression. But antidepressants often don't help unless the root vestibular dysfunction is addressed.
3. Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS)
Vestibular injury can cause:
Profound fatigue
“Fibro fog” (cognitive dysfunction)
Sensory overload
Unrefreshing sleep
Why it's mistaken:
Patients may say “I’m always exhausted,” “I can’t think straight,” or “I can’t handle noise or lights.” These symptoms mirror fibromyalgia and ME/CFS, but a vestibular exam often reveals eye tracking abnormalities, gaze instability, or a reliance on visual cues for balance.
4. ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
Vestibular dysfunction can lead to:
Difficulty with focus and concentration
Trouble reading (due to saccadic eye movements)
Poor short-term memory
Restlessness
Why it's mistaken:
Especially in children, vestibular injury from a fall or early infection may affect visual-motor integration and processing speed, leading to classroom difficulties. These can resemble or overlap with ADHD but may not respond well to stimulant medication.
5. PTSD or Trauma Response
Vestibular injury can:
Cause hypervigilance
Create internal chaos and sensory overwhelm
Trigger dissociation or panic in certain contexts
Why it's mistaken:
People exposed to accidents, abuse, or blasts often have both trauma and vestibular injury. The vestibular dysfunction heightens reactivity, mimicking PTSD, but without classic emotional trauma symptoms. Differentiating between neurological and psychological causes is crucial.
6. Insomnia or Sleep Disorders
Symptoms like:
Frequent waking at night (especially every 60–90 minutes)
Panic attacks during sleep
Inability to fall into deep sleep
Why it's mistaken:
Doctors may label this as primary insomnia or prescribe sleep medications (e.g., Ambien, Trazodone), which rarely help. The real issue is the lack of sensory input in darkness—with no proprioceptive or visual feedback, the injured vestibular system causes the brain to panic and wake the person.
7. Meniere’s Disease or Migraine-Associated Vertigo
These involve:
Episodic vertigo
Ear fullness or pressure
Sound sensitivity
Visual motion sensitivity
Why it's mistaken:
These are true vestibular conditions—but many patients with inner ear concussions, barotrauma, or endolymphatic fistulas are misdiagnosed with Meniere’s or vestibular migraine, when their condition is mechanical or pressure-related and not episodic in the classic sense.
8. Cognitive Decline or Early Dementia
Vestibular injuries affect:
Memory (especially short-term to long-term transfer)
Sequencing
Word and number recall
Why it's mistaken:
Patients who can’t remember appointments, lose objects, or have trouble following steps may appear cognitively impaired. But vestibular injury interferes with memory encoding, not intelligence or brain degeneration.
Why Misdiagnoses Happen - Overlapping Symptoms
Symptom | Common Misdiagnosis | Actual Cause in Vestibular Injury |
Panic in malls or at night | Anxiety disorder | Sensory mismatch from vestibular dysfunction |
Fatigue, brain fog | Depression, ME/CFS | Visual over-reliance; cognitive overload |
Trouble concentrating | ADHD | Disrupted visual tracking (saccades) |
Waking at night with panic | Insomnia or PTSD | No visual or proprioceptive input; ears misfire |
Memory issues | Dementia | Blocked memory transfer from vestibular impairment |
Unless your practitioner KNOWS about what Vestibular Injuries are, and how far reaching their effects can be, this central problem can be completely missed by most doctors and therapists. Which means that you or your child can't get the help they need because everyone is treating the wrong thing!
Management and Treatment Options
There’s no magic bullet, but there is hope:
FSM Therapy: Frequencies that reduce inflammation in the inner ear have been effective for some. Mostly our pretesting reveals a previously undiagnosed vestibular injury, which can be lifechanging to find out about, a lot of things fall into place when the sufferer finds out what is making them feel so crazy. Not crazy! Inner ear damage, usually from a fall or accident.
Prism Glasses: Seeing a Functional Optometrist who is specially trained in Vestibular Injury management is a valuable member of the recovery team, These glasses help the brain re-learn spatial orientation and not get so lost with all the discordant inputs.
Weighted Blankets: Improve proprioceptive feedback during sleep. Important if the person is waking in a panic, or waking often from restless sleep.
Vestibular Rehab: Specialized physical therapy to help recalibrate balance—once the brain is ready. This is best done with FSM running, to help the brain integrate movement training faster, without the nausea. (Ask us about this.)
Validation: The diagnosis alone can be totally life-changing. Many patients finally understand they’re not “crazy.” Knowing what is going on helps them manage their life without the despair they have carried for so long.
Final Thoughts: You’re Not Alone
Vestibular injuries can be devastating not just because of the physical dysfunction—but because of how often they are not acknowledged or understood. If you have a Vestibular System Injury:
No, You are not imagining things.
You are not broken.
You are not weak.
Your brain just lost one of its compass needles.
The good news is, we screen for it as part of our intake screening. If you're curious, come along and let's rule it in or out, together. With clarity, knowledge, validation, and the right therapeutic support, management becomes possible.
Book a Free 15 Minute Consultation with Monica Williams
If you or a family member may have a Vestibular injury, contact Monica to see if Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) therapy might be of benefit.
Based in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, Monica treats clients in-clinic from across Australia, with many travelling from Sydney, Melbourne, and regional areas to access her highly specialised care. As Australia’s leading FSM specialist—using seven different machine types—Monica brings deep clinical insight and passion to every treatment.
Book in for a free 15-minute consultation by following the link below.
