Indigestion and dizziness: what should you know?

Indigestion may cause upper abdominal discomfort, fullness, burping, heartburn, or nausea. Dizziness may feel like light-headedness, unsteadiness, or the room spinning. They can overlap when pain, nausea, poor appetite, vomiting, dehydration, or a long gap between meals affects how you feel. Medicines, alcohol, an inner-ear problem, migraine, anaemia, or a heart or circulation problem can also cause dizziness independently of indigestion. Conditions such as acid reflux, gastritis, gallstones, or a peptic ulcer may explain digestive symptoms, but dizziness is not proof of any one of them.

Sit or lie down if you feel faint, and rise slowly once the sensation settles. Sip fluids and eat a small, gentle meal if you can tolerate it. Avoid alcohol, heavy meals, and driving while dizzy. Record when symptoms began, what you ate, any vomiting or diarrhoea, and medicines or supplements taken. A clinician can review the pattern and decide whether you need an examination, blood pressure check, or tests. Do not start acid reflux medication repeatedly without checking whether it suits your symptoms.

Get urgent medical help for fainting, new weakness or numbness, trouble speaking, severe headache, chest pressure, breathlessness, black stools, vomiting blood, severe or worsening abdominal pain, or inability to keep fluids down. Arrange prompt medical advice if dizziness keeps returning, indigestion persists, you lose weight without trying, or symptoms begin after a new medicine. Sudden dizziness with palpitations or a very fast or irregular heartbeat also needs urgent assessment.

Could dehydration, blood pressure, blood sugar, anaemia, or a medicine explain the dizziness? Does the digestive pattern suggest acid reflux, gastritis, or another cause? Which symptoms should make me seek urgent help?