My Meniere’s Diagnosis

Take medicine and live with the side effects or don’t take it and live with symptoms….

I think I mentioned that since that last round of attacks I had been perhaps a bit too eager to take my allergy medicines to try to fend off the next round of attacks. Well, after the really big slip up on a Thursday of Zyrtec the night before – 2 benedryl and then alprazolam (xanax)…. I had decided to not take zyrtec at all since 1) it was 24 hours and I had a tendency to forget the next day that I had taken it. 2) It really hasn’t been as effective as the benedryl. So…. I had been taking two benedryl at night (the full dosage and one in the mornings, one in the late afternoon to fend off the beginnings of stuffy ear. To put it simply the last few weeks I’ve felt fairly lousy. I seem to have no energy, no get up and go (all got up and went…) Well, Sunday evening it was almost a week since my last shot so I thought it might be time to lay off the benedryl and I didn’t take it before bed.

When I got up, my ear was NOT stopped up so, I didn’t take it that morning either. Monday was the best day I’ve had in a month. I had energy, some real enthusiasm, didn’t feel like Eeyore all day, got in my ~2 mile walk. I was jazzed! I didn’t take any benedryl Monday night and then woke up Tuesday morning with a stuffy ear starting. So, I took the benedryl first thing (1) and wihtin a little while I was back in the same fog. No pep, no energy, no enthusiasm for anything. I spun wheels half the morning. After lunch I actually took a nap before having to go to a late afternoon appointment. By about 9 in the evening I was finally feeling a bit better, maybe not jazzed, but at least not so low energy that getting up seems like too much trouble. (By the way, my ear cleared up sometime during the day, another sign that at least for me these symptoms are allergy related.)

I took 2 benedryl that night out of fear that I would wake up with stuffy ear starting. So, I slept late today (Wednesday) and had a very slow start this morning – not much energy. I didn’t take any benedryl this morning though and by afternoon I have been feeling back again! Now it’s early evening (a bit after 8 ) and I’m feeling pretty good. Fair amount of energy and seem to want to tackle a half dozen new projects.

Through all of this my head still feels a bit scrambled still from the last round of attacks, it’s like I’ve got to relearn to process the movements of my head/body each time I go through that. It seems like a slow gradual return to feeling as though I am actually “back in my own head”.

But that’s the dilemma it seems these days. I either take benedryl to ward off the stuffy ear and go through everything like a zombie at 50% of my usual intensity or don’t take it at all and run the risk of a spin in several days time as the symptoms progress. (Not to mention the funk you go into when your hearing closes down for several days on end.) I may be finding a bit of a balance by taking the benedryl just at night. I’ll have to experiment more I guess and see if I can cut it to just one at night and still manage to ward off the stuffy ear which is usually the start of the next attack.

On top of all of that, I’m also somewhat jazzed to actually find that there’s someone still in me somewhere that has energy and enthusiasm to do things….. the last few weeks I wondered where that person had gone. I actually have felt alive again 2 of the last three days!