Vertigo: The Most Common Kind Is Cured in Minutes, Not With Pills

Summary

The single most common cause of vertigo — benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) — is a purely mechanical fault: tiny calcium-carbonate crystals (otoconia) have fallen loose into a semicircular canal, and a two-minute bedside repositioning manoeuvre (the Epley) physically returns them and resolves the spinning, often in one visit, with strong Cochrane/RCT support — yet the cure is drastically under-used (roughly one in nine primary-care BPPV patients gets it) while the default is a vestibular-suppressant drug that does not fix the crystal displacement, can prolong it, and sedates; the hon