Minor neck strain or very minor neck injuries sometimes cause this for me, for several days at least. This occurs when my neck gets in a position awkward or a strain on my neck, or carrying / moving a heavy object on my shoulders that affects my neck.

I remember moving a sofa once in a narrow church corridor, out of a room across a tight corner, and having to hold up the sofa as I scooted it around the corner, straining my neck. For several days, starting immediately, I experienced some very unpleasant dizziness and a spinning sensation that was not fun at all.

It seems to me to be akin to what you are describing—a vibration of a dental tool could shake up one’s bones and muscles with similar effect.

It will probably get better in a few days. But get professional help if you think something got injured, by all means. All I can say is what happened to me.

@Yellowdog Thanks a lot for your response. The part of having your neck in an awkward position my be the cause of my vertigo also. The dental hygienist had me tilted way back with my head turned to the right for over an hour. But then there was a delay of 14 hours from the dental work and the vertigo symptoms. Anyway I have to go back to the dentist to have deep cleaning done on my left 2 quadrants next week and I’ll let the dentist know what happened.

I get positional vertigo. It started following a bad accident. The Epley Maneuver works well for me to cure it.

Positional vertigo should stop if you stay in a position 30 seconds, but if you have a severe case the 30 seconds can be terrorizing and impossible. Nausea is common when it’s severe. I have never screamed out loud from any type of pain, but I was screaming when they moved me and I had severe positional very on both sides.

You should be able to trigger it by lying in bed and turning your head 45 degrees. So, usually looking where the ceiling meets the wall, more or less. It works best if your head is slightly hanging off the edge of the bed, but that might be hard to do initially, plus it’s hard to do without someone helping to hold your head.

If you can trigger it in the 45 degree position, keep staring eyes open until the wall stops moving. About 20 seconds and this should not cause a lot of nausea so don’t be worried about that. When everything stops moving you turn your head to the exact same position on the other side and wait 20 seconds. Then you turn off the side of the bed and stare at the floor 20 seconds. Then slowly sit upright. Don’t look down for 48 hours and sleep sitting up (as close to it as you can) for two days. You might need to repeat it if you don’t fully correct.

If you trigger the spin accidentally when you move in bed, take the opportunity to do the maneuver.

You can find YouTube’s of the Epley Maneuver, watch a few. Some doctors do it slightly different than others.

Even if you don’t do it perfectly you might get at least some of the crystals in the inner ear back to the right place, which will help.

It might have been the position you were in during the procedure contributed to the problem.

Sorry for a second post. I just noticed you wrote you’re married. Have your wife see if she can see your eyes move involuntarily at the 45 degree angle when you feel the spinning. Have her help you do the Epley Maneuver. She can be your spot rather than the wall. This will help confirm it’s positional and not neurological or some other problem. You can see examples of that online too. Eye movement Epley.

Thanks @JLeslie for the information about the Epley Maneuver and ideas on how to identify and manage it. This is all new to me.
Good health!

If you go to a dizzy doctor, an ENT who specializes in vertigo, see if your wife can come in the exam room with you to watch him do the Epley, even if you try it at home first. I would definitely try it at home, because even if it’s not positional it won’t hurt anything.

This thread is useful to me too. I need to learn the Epley maneuver. I haven’t had BPPV after a dental visit but I have had it two or three times and it is scary. I also had labyrinthitis twice which was extreme dizziness for a day or two and absolutely miserable.

People with positional vertigo don’t usually just have an incident, and then it just goes away, but it is true they might not know they have it, that is very common. Usually, the crystals are in the wrong place and somewhat stay in the wrong place unless something is done to help correct them, although over time through movement it can correct on its own. You might not notice you have it all along if it’s a minor case and you only trigger it in very specific positions.

Minor cases, some people notice when they put their heads back to rinse their hair in the shower. Getting out of bed. Rolling on your side in bed. Being reclined at the salon to get your hair washed. Those are a few. Mine was so severe that just trying to sit up straight my entire world was spinning upside down, where as minor cases you might just feel or see a slight movement like in the movies when they transition to a scene from a memory and the scene gets a side to side wavy look.

Part of the job of the crystals is to tell your brain where gravity is, hence severe cases literally spin your world upside down.

Some folks here know that I raced in long distance canoe races in open seas between the Hawaiian Islands (26 to 41 miles long). I never got sea sick. I use to watch team makes suffer with sea sickness not really knowing what they were going through. Now I think that I understand.

I only felt slightly sea sick once (for a very shout time) while in 10 foot swells the canoe suddenly lurched and shoved its nose into my abdomen with great force (our canoe flipped and I was stationed at the front of the canoe). One team member told me that I could have been killed.