Last year, two Los Angeles women, ages 31 and 48, visited Cedars-Sinai Hospital on separate occasions, suffering from a mysterious, debilitating illness.
They were struck by the classic symptoms of vertigo: a condition that causes constant dizziness and feels like you’re on an endless carnival ride.
The majority of patients also experience nausea, which makes it difficult to even get out of bed.
In both cases, there was no apparent cause, as both women were relatively young and healthy.
Doctors were puzzled until they discovered that the patients shared a daily habit: using a battery-powered massager, such as a Theragun, to soothe sore shoulders and neck.
Vertigo is a condition that causes intense dizziness, nausea and movement problems. One patient described it in a 2020 case study as feeling like they were on a carnival ride.
When the doctors asked the women to stop their massage gun routine, their conditions were cured almost immediately.
These two cases led Dr. Ronen Nazarian, an otolaryngologist at Cedars-Sinai, and doctoral candidate David Elisha to conclude that using devices like Theragun on your shoulders and neck can cause people to develop a rare condition called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). ) is called.
They explain that the intense vibrations emitted by the device can, in rare cases, disrupt the intricate balancing mechanism in the ear.
Now they want users to be warned that using this wellness device could make you feel unwell.
“Manufacturers should provide general warnings about the risk of dizziness associated with these devices, especially when used near the head and upper neck,” they wrote in their case report, published in JAMA Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery.
Theragun is certainly not the only brand of these types of massagers, but it is by far the most popular brand in the US, good for 71 percent from the market from 2021.
The original Theragun sells for $149 online. Other retailers, such as HyperVolt and RecoverFun, sell their massage guns for $199 and $99, respectively.
These massagers are sold to provide concentrated deep tissue massage to relieve sore muscles.
Devices are used to relieve tension on the neck, shoulders and even the base of the skull.
Vertigo occurs when there is a disturbance of the balance system in the inner ear. This can be caused by head trauma, or, in the case study presented by Dr. Nazarian, frequent tremors.
BPPV is a relatively rare condition. About 3.2 percent of people develop it each year, the authors write.
It happens when the organs that regulate balance, located in your inner ear, are disturbed. This collection of organs, called your vestibular system, looks a bit like a pair of snails.
A number of things can disrupt the inner ear, including infections, strokes and medications. But most cases of this type of dizziness are caused by head trauma, such as concussion, falls, or abuse.
The disturbance causes your body to lose its sense of balance and as a result develop dizziness, unsteadiness, nausea, dizziness, vomiting and movement problems.
It makes you feel like you’re “on a carnival ride,” an unidentified vertigo sufferer shared in a 2020 case report.
But as the research shows, intense, frequent vibrations also cause dizziness.
Dr. Nazarian suggests in the article that dizziness caused by vibration may be underreported, and that even using electric toothbrushes could be enough to cause the condition.
While this may sound far-fetched, other medical experts agree.
Cycling on bumpy terrain and intense aerobic exercise have also caused cases of dizziness, according to the researchers Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
This mechanism could occur with massage guns, which puncture the body between 1,700 and 5,000 times per minute, for a force of between 31 and 70 pounds.
This amount of force could cause the tiny features that control our balance in the inner ear to displace, the authors say, causing dizziness.