It comes out of nowhere.

Suddenly, the room—the whole world—spins sickeningly round and round.

You feel like you're at the center of a tornado, falling, with no sense of balance or support.

That's vertigo, a dramatic and debilitating symptom that accompanies many different kinds of illnesses and injuries and affects approximately 20 percent of the adult population every year. As you age, your chances of experiencing it rise. If you're a woman, you have two to three times greater chances of experiencing it than a man.

Distinctly different from dizziness, vertigo is characterized by sudden onset and, just as often, sudden cessation after a relatively short duration of a few minutes. Dr Josh Lurie, owner of Balance & Vestibular Center Physical Therapy in Northridge, California (), describes the difference between vertigo and dizziness this way: “True vertigo is where somebody feels like the room is spinning around them. It's very intense, debilitating and short lasting. You aren't able to stand up as it is happening, and it often happens when you're turning