Chiropractic care in Clarksville for vertigo and dizziness that come with neck pain

Vertigo is the feeling that you, or the room, are moving when nothing is, and it's one kind of dizziness among several. When dizziness comes with neck pain or stiffness, the neck is the part a chiropractor examines and treats. At Source Chiropractic in Clarksville, Dr. Jeff, Dr. Cindy and Dr. Ali examine and treat the neck. If you're dizzy and your neck is sore or stiff, a first visit starts with your health history and symptoms, then an exam of how your neck moves, and we'll tell you whether the neck looks like part of it.

If dizziness has come on suddenly along with trouble speaking, double vision, weakness, a severe headache or chest pain, that's an emergency. Call 911.

Can a chiropractor help with vertigo and dizziness?

Some dizziness is thought to come from the neck, and it has a name: cervicogenic dizziness. There's no single test for it, and a neck exam on its own can't tell what's causing your dizziness, so it's considered only once the history points away from the inner ear, migraine, medicines, the heart and blood pressure, and the brain. When it does, the neck is what our care is aimed at. The joints and deep muscles at the top of the neck are packed with position sensors that tell the brain where your head is. The proposed explanation is that when those joints and muscles aren't working well, after an injury or with muscle fatigue, wear or inflammation, the signals they send stop matching what the inner ear and the eyes report, and that mismatch is felt as dizziness. People with it have dizziness together with a problem in the neck (the cervical spine) and poor balance. Hands-on care for the neck has been tested for it in randomized trials, and what they found is further down this page.

Spinning that starts with one particular head position, that comes with a change in hearing, or that arrives as part of a migraine usually has a different source, and your history is how we sort that out. When it points somewhere other than the neck, we'll tell you so and refer you to a medical doctor for it.

What happens at your first visit for dizziness?

You'll sit down with Dr. Jeff, Dr. Cindy or Dr. Ali and go over your health history, your symptoms and your goals. For dizziness, we ask what it actually feels like, what brings it on, how long an episode lasts, if your hearing has changed, and which medicines you take.

Then we look at your neck: how it moves, and what the joints and muscles are doing. That means joint restriction, muscle tension, swelling and any sign of an irritated nerve, with full-spine X-rays when they're clinically appropriate. You'll hear what we found before we recommend anything, and the plan is built around your exam and those goals.

The new-patient chiropractic offer has its own terms. Book online or contact us.

What care do we use when your neck is part of the dizziness?

When your history fits dizziness from the neck and the exam finds a neck problem, care is aimed at that finding. A stiff neck on its own isn't proof that it's causing the dizziness, so if the dizziness doesn't settle as the neck does, we'll refer you for a medical assessment. Depending on what we find, it may include:

• Chiropractic adjustment. A controlled force applied to a specific joint, usually by hand, aimed at a joint in the neck that isn't moving well.
• Other hands-on care for the joints and muscles of the neck.
• Rehab exercises for neck movement, strength and stability, so the work carries on between visits.
• Dry needling for tight bands and trigger points in the neck and upper back muscles.
• Class IV laser therapy for muscle and joint pain and stiffness in the neck.

A licensed massage therapist also works out of our office, and we'll put you in touch when soft-tissue work fits.

What the research shows about hands-on care for cervicogenic dizziness

Hands-on care for the neck has been tested in randomized trials of people with cervicogenic dizziness:

• The pooled evidence. A 2022 review of 13 randomized trials (898 people), six of which tested manual therapy, found moderate-quality evidence that manual therapy reduces cervicogenic dizziness, neck symptoms and balance problems. Manual therapy combined with exercise looked even better, though the evidence for that combination is very low in quality. The manual therapy in those six trials was sustained glides, sustained glides with mobilisation, or, in one trial, a traction-manipulation. A 2025 review limited to eight higher-quality trials found that most showed less intense dizziness and more neck movement in the short term, with long-term effects uncertain.
• A year later. In a trial of 86 people with long-standing cervicogenic dizziness, average age 62, two manual therapy programs of two to six sessions over six weeks each left people with less frequent dizziness and less dizziness-related handicap than a placebo group 12 months later. How intense the dizziness was, and pain, didn't differ between the groups, and no adverse effects were reported.
• Manipulation. In a 40-person trial, a traction-manipulation protocol reduced dizziness intensity, dizziness-related disability and pain more than a control group who lay on their back, at 48 hours and again at one month.

These trials are small, and the Bárány Society, which classifies vestibular disorders internationally, holds that the evidence for a mechanism linking the neck to vertigo is lacking and proposes no diagnostic criteria for cervical dizziness for clinical use outside research studies.

Is neck treatment safe if you're dizzy?

The most common side effects of spinal manipulation or mobilisation are temporary: more pain or discomfort, stiffness, or headache, and most go away within 24 hours. Serious problems, including strokes involving arteries in the neck, have been reported. They're very rare, and there are no accurate estimates of how often they happen, and the chance of a serious problem may be greater in people with underlying health problems that raise their risk of injury. Manipulation that focuses on the neck has been linked to small, potentially dangerous tears in the artery walls of the neck, called cervical artery dissections, which are rare but can lead to a stroke. The available evidence suggests these tears are uncommon in people getting spinal manipulation, and experts disagree on whether manipulation can actually cause them.

Your health history and your paperwork are reviewed before any neck treatment here, in case they show a reason an adjustment or another treatment isn't right for you.

Reduced blood flow to the back of the brain is a separate matter. It can cause dizziness on its own, it's one of the situations where neck manipulation shouldn't be done, and sudden dizziness with any of the emergency signs below needs 911.

Other treatment options for vertigo and dizziness

Which other option fits depends on the cause. For BPPV, an inner-ear cause described below, an ENT doctor or audiologist may do the Epley maneuver, a series of simple movements that isn't a spinal adjustment. In many cases one session works, and some people need it several times. A vestibular rehabilitation therapist builds an individual treatment plan. ENT and audiology assessment can test hearing and balance-organ function directly, and it's where hearing loss, ringing in the ear and Meniere's disease are looked into. Your physician can look into medicines, blood pressure, heart rhythm and neurological causes, and migraine care fits when the dizziness is part of a migraine pattern. Hands-on neck care is often combined with exercise, and we'll go over the options that fit you at your exam.

When is dizziness an emergency?

Dizziness that comes on suddenly and severely, especially with any of the following, can be a sign of a stroke affecting the back of the brain or of a heart attack. That's an emergency:

• A new severe headache or new severe neck pain
• Double vision, or loss of vision
• Slurred speech, or difficulty swallowing
• Weakness or numbness on one side of the face or body
• Severe imbalance, difficulty walking, or new unsteadiness on your feet
• Sudden hearing loss, or new deafness in one ear
• Fainting, or a sudden fall without warning
• Chest pain, heaviness or discomfort, or shortness of breath, along with the dizziness

Call 911 or go to an emergency department for any of those, including when the dizziness started after a head or neck injury. Please don't wait to see if it passes.

With possible stroke or heart attack symptoms, call 911 for an ambulance instead of driving yourself. The CDC has its own list of stroke warning signs, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute lists light-headedness or sudden dizziness among heart attack symptoms, and the NHS lists the emergency symptoms to watch for alongside vertigo. If your dizziness started with a collision, our whiplash guide covers the warning signs after a neck injury.

Is it vertigo, or another kind of dizziness?

People use "dizzy" for at least three different sensations, and telling them apart is the first thing the history and exam try to do.

• Vertigo is a false sense of movement, usually spinning, either of you or of the room. It points toward the inner ear or the balance pathways.
• Lightheadedness is the feeling that you're about to faint. It can come with a drop in blood pressure when you stand up too quickly, or as a side effect of a medicine, among other causes.
• Unsteadiness is trouble keeping your balance while you walk or stand, without spinning and without feeling faint.

Other symptoms can come with it, such as nausea, blurred vision, hearing loss or ringing in the ear, and over time it can lead to fatigue. NIDCD covers balance symptoms and their possible causes.

What causes vertigo and dizziness?

These are the common ones. The inner-ear, medication and migraine-related causes are covered in more depth in NIDCD's guide to balance disorders and the NHS guide to vertigo.

• Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is a common cause of vertigo. Displaced particles in the inner ear can set off short bursts of spinning when you roll over in bed, lie back, or look up.
• Vestibular neuritis and labyrinthitis are inflammation of the balance nerve or the inner ear, and they may follow a viral illness. The NHS advises seeing a doctor for vertigo that won't go away or keeps coming back.
• Meniere's disease brings episodes of vertigo along with hearing loss, a feeling of fullness, and ringing in the ear.
• Vestibular migraine brings repeated episodes of vertigo, or dizziness with nausea set off by moving the head, of moderate or severe intensity, in someone with a history of migraine, each lasting from five minutes to three days. Our headaches and migraines guide covers it.
• Medication effects and blood pressure changes are a common cause, especially of lightheadedness when you stand up. Whoever prescribes your medicines is the person to talk to about that.
• Dizziness with neck pain, cervicogenic dizziness, is the kind described at the top of this page, and the one our exam and care are aimed at.
• Reduced blood flow to the back of the brain can also cause dizziness, and it belongs with a physician first.

Book a visit

If you're dizzy and your neck is sore or stiff, and none of the emergency signs above fit, a first visit at our Clarksville office is where we start working out what's behind it. We'll tell you what we find, including when it points somewhere other than your neck. If we are not able to help you with your problem or are unable to reduce your symptoms, we will make sure to give you a recommendation to another experienced provider. Book online or contact us.