Is that tingling in your head and faint feeling happening to you again?
“There can be many causes,” says Carolyn Dean, MD, ND – Medical Advisory Board Member, Nutritional Magnesium Association at nutritionalmagnesium.org.
According to Dr. Dean, here are the most likely causes of feeling faint and having a tingling sensation in your head:
- “Heart rhythm disorders can cause dizziness/feeling faint.”
- Medication reaction or side-effect
- Dehydration,
- Atrial fibrillation
- Transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke)
- Low blood pressure (hypotension)
- Hyperventilation
- Heat exhaustion
- High blood pressure (hypertension)
- Anemia
These causes are in no particular order, but it’s certainly no reassurance to see that some of these causes are quite serious.
If you from time to time feel faint and have a tingling feeling in your head, first ask yourself if you’re on any new medications.
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See what the listed side effects are. Discuss this with your doctor if the list includes faintness.
But what about that tingling in your head? Does this occur only when the faint feeling occurs?
Or do you think that these are two unrelated experiences? Keep a documentation to find out if these symptoms are always paired or if they occur randomly, independent of one another.
Heart rhythm disorders, including atrial fibrillation, are notorious for causing both dizziness and feeling faint, though feeling a tingling on or in your head is not a symptom.
Book an appointment with a cardiologist for a heart exam.
Do you feel the faintness and tingling in your head only after exercise? Make sure you’re properly hydrated, even on days that you don’t exercise much.
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Do you know what a transient ischemic attack is? As mentioned above, it’s a mini-stroke.
This means that a blood clot forms in a blood vessel inside your brain, blocking off blood flow to the area of the brain that the vessel feeds.
The functions that this deprived area of the brain controls will determine the type of symptoms.
Technically, you’re having a stroke, but the clot dissolves soon, sometimes only 30 seconds after it causes a blockage — which is why the sudden-onset symptoms are transient.
Take note that tingling in your head and feeling faint are not hallmark symptoms of a TIA. Usually, TIAs causes the following symptoms:
– Weakness, numbness or paralysis, usually on one side of your body
– One-sided clumsiness or a heavy feeling
– Slurred speech, unintelligible speech or difficulty speaking
– Confusion
– Double vision or a visual disturbance described as a shade being pulled over one eye
– Dizziness. Do not equate dizziness with a faint feeling. They are not one and the same.
If you suspect a TIA, you must immediately go to the emergency room; a TIA is a harbinger of a near-future stroke.
Low blood pressure can be determined with a home blood pressure test—sometimes. Discuss this with your doctor.
Hyperventilation is uncontrolled rapid breathing, usually triggered by a panic attack.
Do you feel faint and any tingling only when you’ve been in the heat for a long time?
Heat exhaustion can be prevented with proper hydration and avoidance of prolonged activities in the heat that your body is not fit enough for.
Anemia is a low red blood cell count that can easily be determined by a blood test.
The bottom line is that, unless you can pinpoint a pattern, such as experiencing the faint feeling and tingling in your head only after heavy physical exertion in the heat, you should see a doctor to discuss these symptoms.
