Express Mortgages Express Loans Bingo Lose Weight Franchising Dating Shopping Book Shop Find Spare Parts Cut Your Bills Wine Shop Legal Store FlatShare Cruises

DID VERTIGO CAUSE MY LOSS OF SMELL?

DIZZINESS: Comedian Richard Herring first began suffering from benign positional vertigo in 2004

Tuesday November 25,2008

By Dr Rosemary Leonard

Q I suffer from benign positional vertigo which I have learned to live with. About a year ago, I tripped and hit the back of my head.

I was taken to hospital but assured that nothing was seriously wrong. However, since then I have lost my sense of smell.

Could this be connected to the vertigo, the knock on the head or both? Can anything be done to restore my sense of smell?

A With benign positional vertigo it feels as though the world is moving around you, which can make you feel unstable and cause falls.

It is caused by a problem inside the inner ear, which controls balance. Occasionally it can be linked to problems in other parts of the ear but this does not include your sense of smell.

Smell is detected via sensors in the nose, which then send messages via nerves to the brain.

The most common reason for losing the sense of smell is inflammation of the nose. Many people who have heavy colds can’t smell properly. It can also occur in people whose nasal lining is inflamed due to allergy.

More rarely, loss of smell is due to damage to the nerves that carry the message to the brain, for example following a stroke or if the brain is damaged by Alzheimer’s.

It may be that when you fell, you did suffer minor nerve damage.

Special investigations may determine the cause but unfortunately if it is nerve damage it is unlikely that much can done to help.

However, it would still be worth asking your GP if you could see a specialist.

** If you have a health question for Dr Rosemary, please write to her, in confidence, at The Northern & Shell Building, 10 Lower Thames Street, London EC3R 6EN, or e-mail healthexpress.co.uk

Dr Rosemary’s reply will appear in this column. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence and that, due to the volume of letters, she cannot reply to everyone.