Is there a medical procedure or test that can be done to determine if sufficient blood is reaching the head?

Question

Can doctors recommend a test or procedure to find out whether enough rich blood(oxygen rich blood/ iron rich blood is reaching the head/brain. I have been experiencing dizziness for a long time.

Answer 1

They can do a test called carotid dopplers, which show them how much blood is going through the main vessels from the heart to the brain. Normally they look at the veins (deoxygenated blood), but they can also do the arterial study which would give them a good idea as to how much blood/oxygen is heading to your brain.
Have they checked your regular pulse ox? its a clamp type device that they put on your finger (or sometimes earlobe) to see how much oxygen is circulating in your body. Its painless, and usually pretty acurrate.
What other tests have they done to work on your dizziness? Have they done laying/sitting/standing blood pressures? Have they done a tilt-table test (where they have you lay on a table and the table tilts you to different angles and they check your blood pressure)? How about a CT scan of your head? Theres lots of tests that can be done. Theres also medicines that help. Meclizine, also known as Dramamine non-drowsy formula, may help also. Good luck, and I hope this helped.

Answer 2

I know that chronic dizziness can be frustrating and disruptive to your everyday life, so I'm sorry you have to deal with that.

There is a test that measures blood supply to the brain - its called a brain flow study, or perfusion scan. However, to my knowledge, it is only done on patients who are suspected of being brain dead. There is also a way of looking at the main blood vessels to supply the brain - the carotids - using a doppler ultrasound. This will only tell you if your carotid arteries are clogged.

There are many causes for chronic dizziness, and a general lack of oxygen to the brain is not one of them. Brains that don't have oxygen for a significant lenght of time cannot function - you would likely have other symptoms of lack of oxygen like arm or leg weakness, slurred speech, etc. A transient lack of oxygen/blood to the brain such as occurs when you move from lying in your bed to standing can temporarily make you dizzy, but it sounds like you're dizzy all the time, right?

You could have an inner ear problem/infection, an irritation of your vestibular nerve, poor eyesight, a previous stroke (although its rare for a stroke to present just with dizziness), etc. etc.

Have you been to a doctor? Have you tried an over the counter medication, something like meclizine?

Answer 3

You could see a Chiropractor that speciallizes in craniopathy. There are many things that can cause dizziness; decreased blood flow is the worse but the least common. It could be something as simple as a vagus nerve entrapment, cranial/sacral lock up, even mal-alignment of bones in the upper neck. These are all things that a good chiropractor can find out and help you with, without very expensive test and invasive procedures. If they feel it is something very serious, they will send you to the emergency room or to your family doctor.

Answer 4

Yes, there is.. they can do what's called a doppler and the sound will show how much blood is getting to the brain, as well, they can check the oxygenation of the blood and see if the blood getting to the brain is useful to it.

Answer 5

mri