My Meniere’s Diagnosis

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.

I started getting a bit dizzy. Generally the pattern was like this. Allergies which were constant would be a bit worse for a few days, my ear would stop up and if that persisted beyond 4-5 days I’d be a bit dizzy. Not too bad, but bad enough. I’d many times feel like I needed a seat belt when I was just sitting as I felt as though I was bobbing like a cork on a lake.

Through these symptoms the stuffiness in my ear many times reminded me of the feeling you get when your ears pop when traveling in the mountains or on an airplane. Pressure. Sometimes the pressure would make my eyes water.

The other thing, with my ear being stopped up for a few days at a time, this roaring noise would fill the emptiness in my right ear making hearing even more difficult. (Kind of like listening to a seashell.)

At this point I had just resigned myself to these being a normal result of my allergies which had refused treatment with medications before and it was mild enough (even with the dizziness) that I didn’t pursue it. Admittedly through this time our insurance situation changed several times and that probably made me less likely to go to the doctor to try and investigate what was going on.