Vertigo Medication: Best Options, Side Effects, and What Works

When you feel the room spin, it’s not just discomfort—it’s your vertigo medication, drugs used to treat the sensation of spinning or dizziness caused by inner ear or brain balance disorders. Also known as dizziness treatment, it’s not one-size-fits-all. What works for one person might do nothing for another, and some meds even make it worse. Vertigo isn’t a disease—it’s a symptom. It comes from problems in your inner ear, like BPPV or Meniere’s, or from nerve signals going haywire in your brain. That’s why the right vertigo medication depends on the root cause, not just the spinning feeling.

Common options include meclizine, an antihistamine that calms the inner ear signals causing dizziness, often sold as Bonine or Antivert. It’s cheap, widely available, and helps with motion sickness too. Then there’s betahistine, a histamine-like drug that improves blood flow in the inner ear, often used for Meniere’s disease. It’s not available everywhere, but where it is, many report fewer attacks. You’ll also see dimenhydrinate, another antihistamine found in Dramamine, used for short-term relief. But none of these fix the cause—they just mute the symptoms. For long-term relief, physical therapy like Epley maneuvers often beats pills.

Some people try benzodiazepines like diazepam for severe vertigo, but they’re sedating and risky for daily use. Antibiotics or steroids might be used if an infection or inflammation is behind it. The key is knowing what’s triggering your vertigo. If it’s BPPV, medication won’t help much—repositioning maneuvers will. If it’s Meniere’s, salt control and betahistine might be your best bet. And if it’s stress-related, calming your nervous system matters more than any pill.

This collection pulls together real comparisons, patient stories, and practical advice on what vertigo medications actually do—and what doesn’t work. You’ll find clear breakdowns of how each drug affects your body, what side effects to expect, and which ones people keep coming back to. No fluff. No marketing. Just what helps, what doesn’t, and why.