Stop prescribing meclizine for vertigo
PSA. Travel physical therapist here. In all the different settings I’ve worked in, my biggest pet peeve is seeing patients on meclizine/antivert for dizziness. Please refer these patients to vestibular PT and/or an ENT. Especially when they report room spinning, difficulty with head movements, etc. There is evidence that meclazine may increase the risk of falling in patients with BPPV and can lead to hip fractures in older adults. It doesn’t solve the root cause and instead causes sedation and worse balance. Steroids for vestibular hypo function and labyrinthitis is controversial but may be helpful. But you should learn the differences between BPPV type symptoms and other forms of dizziness before making a clinical decision for pharmaceutical management.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40705353/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36728629/
As some people are mentioning in the comments, it isn’t that hard to learn the dix-hallpike or epley maneuver. Might be worth looking into instead so you can actually fix BPPV at the same appointment rather than waiting for a long initial eval at PT. I fully understand that it’s not very accessible and that speaks more to the high demand for this field that is unfortunately not highly available, but my argument is that it’s better for them to be seen 2-3 weeks afterwards than not at all, and still better than having recurrent use of meclizine as a bandaid