My Meniere’s Diagnosis

Aftermath of an Attack Lingers

It’s frustrating to find the words to describe what I feel lake in the days and weeks after the last attacks. I had two attacks in one week, which is a first… that was, I think, three weeks ago… I say, I think because it’s all running together. I slept the better part of the weekend following those episodes. I’ve been tired and a little lightheaded most every day since. I’ve also been on the watch for any sign that the scales may be tipping towards another episode and trying to head it off if at all possible. Which led to a big mistake last Thursday…

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The beast still comes to visit | Meniere’s symptoms acting up

(Updated June 5th - see the bottom of the post.)

I see that the last of my scheduled posts about my initial diagnosis have now finished posting. That February trip I was talking about in the last post that I had my first need to get the prednisone filled was February/March 2008 and really the rest of 2008 was on the whole MUCH better than 2007 had been. The symptoms still acted up from time to time, a little roaring/stuffiness in the ear occasionally. Nothing really severe enough the rest of 2008 to require prednisone, but several days that tipped the spins enough to require the xanax to take the edge off. I’ve been getting the allergy shot every other week (Still - backing off to less frequently caused the symptoms to be a bit more active). I’ve even taken to using a rainbow (water based) vacuum at the house in the hopes that the dust will not be blown back out into the room in vacuuming. (The water is essentially the “bag” of the vacuum with the rainbows. The water get’s changed out after each vacuum and we dry it outside so there’s little chance of it becoming a mold risk for us. And no, the carpet doesn’t get wet….)

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Dizzies not quite gone

We had taken a short weekend trip when I had to cash in that Prednisone prescription. One night stay in a hotel just as a mid February get-away. We had to cut on the air conditioner that night and the next morning as I was loading the car things started spinning. Not full blown vertigo (spinning vortex of death as I’ve started to think of it), but on my own classification scale it was heavy dizziness. I took a Xanax and we made it back into town. I got the prednisone prescription filled and took it to the letter.

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Ear Nose and Throat Doctor (ENT)

So, by the time I was at my ENT appointment I was still having the pressure and roaring in my ear (always the right ear.) I was still off balance and dizzy. Especially after car rides. It was hard to watch motion. (Sitting in a lobby facing the street was almost torturous.) I went through several tests at the ENT including a hearing test and was Diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease. He said that the hearing loss matched the classic “loss curve” for Meniere’s and he prescribed my with Alprazolam (Xanax) and also wrote a prescription for a diuretic that I would use daily.

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The allergist

I then went to the allergist as I had been referred and discovered that I was allergic to dust mites and a mold (aspergyllum…) They started treating me for the more severe reaction, dust mites and couldn’t really say that would solve my dizziness/vertigo, but diagnosed me with Eustachian tube dysfunction as a likely cause for all that. My shots began and I found out in the early phase of “once per week” shots I could come in as often as I like as long as I left one day between shots.

I was eager to get things going (and to get as much as I could on the 2007 year health insurance as we had already met our $5200 deductible.)

So from October through late December I got allergy shots 2 to 3 times each week. I managed to get in Monday Wednesday Friday shots many weeks. Through all this time I was feeling miserable. Fatigue, roaring/pressurized ear/constant mild dizziness and off-balance.

So, I called the doctors office again and asked for a referral to an Ear Nose and Throat doctor. I just wanted to have another opinion on getting my balance back. (The worst was a car ride Thanksgiving weekend. I felt like was still riding in the car a week after I got back.)

So I got a referral to an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat Doctor.)

Time to find out What’s Going On

After my second vertigo attack I knew I had to find out what was going on. I was now terrified of that coming back. It haunted my dreams. I bought a pill carrier for my keychain and put the Meclizine in there. I read for hours online and found a description of this disorder called Meniere’s Disease. It said that the main symptoms were pressure or fullness in one or both ears, loss of hearing in one or both ears, tinnitus or roaring in one or both ears, dizziness and occasional bouts of severe vertigo. My jaw was on the floor as I read peoples descriptions of their experiences in the forum at the menieres.org forum. I found people there describing what I had experienced and had not yet found a WAY to describe.

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Symptoms Part 5 - the Vertigo Strikes Back

The ear pressure and light dizziness varied so much after that first vertigo spell that at times I could forget that anything was wrong. Really it was as though everything was normal and then for stretches it was as though I had an ongoing affliction, unable to hear well, off balance, etc. I thought I had managed to prevent drastic spells with my sudafed regimen, but the Vertigo was about to come back with a vengeance.

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Symptoms Part 4 - Aftermath of the Vertigo

After I woke up from the exhausted stupor that the Vertigo left I was better. I was relieved to find that the room wasn’t really spinning that much. I had slept several hours. I felt as though I had jet lag though. I was exhausted and slow moving. It took around a week or so before I got to feeling more like normal again. The fatigue was hard to describe, but fortunately it finally passed.

I had been told by more than one person that I needed to see a doctor about this.

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Symptoms - Part 3 | My First Vertigo Attack

So, I was in a bit of a routine, sometimes my symptoms were more active and would give me light dizziness, preceded by stuffiness in one ear, pressure/roaring in that ear. That seemed to be preceded by times that my allergies were a bit worse. Spring and fall seemed to be more peak times for me. It didn’t seem to match any particular named pollen that I could notice.

Then things took a spin for the worse.

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Symptoms - Part 2

I don’t remember when this happened but occasionally I noticed that when my allergies were particularly bothersome my right ear would stop up. I couldn’t hear as well for stretches at a time. It was always the right ear and I’d try to fight it with a few days of decongestants. Sometimes those decongestants would work, sometimes they didn’t seem to be as effective. It always seemed to go away in 3-5 days anyway, which is about how long it seemed like the cold medicines would take.

Things started getting a bit weirder though.

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