Chronic dizziness is treatable & curable: interview with Dr. Howard Schubiner, MD

In this interview with leading mindbody physician Dr. Howard Schubiner, we discuss his 20+ years of experience working with conditions like PPPD, MdDS, vestibular migraine, post-COVID dizziness and other chronic dizziness. We talk about what the conventional medical messaging surrounding these symptoms gets wrong, and how the messaging can even cause chronic symptoms. We also talk about emotional awareness and expression, a treatment approach for which Dr. Schubiner and colleagues were recently awarded a several million dollar National Institute of Health research grant to study.

You can learn more about Dr. Schubiner and his long and impactful career in mindbody medicine on his website, unlearnyourpain.com, where you can also find more information about mindbody conditions, his books, research, programs and more.

To learn more about me, please visit my website at thesteadycoach.com. You can also take my course (a MAJOR update with elements of emotional awareness and expression as discussed in this video is coming Jan 2023) entirely for free by signing up at thesteadycoach.com/free-course

The checklist referenced in this video can be found on the ppdassociation.org website.


00:00 Intro
03:58 What is mindbody medicine?
06:01 Chronic dizziness disorders are curable mindbody conditions, as are many other medically unexplained chronic symptoms
07:50 Predictive processing explains medically unexplained symptoms like chronic dizziness
10:18 Dr. Schubiner confirms having seen people recover from PPPD, MdDS, vestibular migraine in his practice
11:10 We treat all "primary" symptom-based conditions in the same way, regardless of the type of symptoms
12:41 Doctors often don't know how to diagnose and treat neuroplastic conditions because there is no structural problem to fix
14:44 Post-COVID dizziness is a mindbody condition that can be treated and cured using mindbody methods; it is NOT incurable
17:40 The "nocebo effect" refers to when people get worse due to receiving the message that they cannot recover
20:14 People often have a hard time believing their symptoms are mindbody because they are told by experts that their conditions are incurable
21:50 Some ways to figure out that you have a neural circuit condition
24:00 Injuries heal and the brain is plastic; if symptoms persist, it is often a brain error
25:24 Everyone knows that emotions cause physical symptoms!
26:09 When in danger, the brain sets off an alarm- physical symptoms are an indication of this alarm
27:50 Symptoms persist when the neural circuit is reinforced by fear, worry and despair
28:50 There are two ways dealing with symptoms: dealing with the emotions, and lowering the fear keeping the circuit going
30:04 How to start when symptoms are present all the time, such as with MdDS or certain types of PPPD or vestibular migraine
31:45 It is normal for us to learn to make unpleasant sensations less unpleasant (e.g. drinking coffee or having a deep tissue massage)
33:29 Another technique for "turning toward" and not fearing sensations
36:41 How people can tell if emotional awareness and expression might help
39:40 Why being unaware of emotions in situations in our lives can cause symptoms
42:50 Dr. Schubiner describes how emotional awareness and expression helps people with chronic dizziness
46:00 Where CBT and talk therapy sometimes miss the mark and don't lead to true healing
48:00 Dr. Schubiner makes some recommendations for what you can do what right now
51:24 It may seem hard to believe, but as they recover, people will often see their symptoms as a gift
54:49 Dr. Schubiner's message to you: you can recover, don't give up hope! DISCLAIMER: Please note that Yonit Arthur, The Steady Coach and any of our other guests are not acting as an audiologist nor offering audiology or medical services services or advice on any public videos or on any other content. This channel provides wellness education and personal opinion only, and are not meant to be a substitute for medical or mental health instruction or intervention. Use any tools discussed at your own risk.