…anything about it. A family member just told me he was diagnosed with it and it sounds just horrible. Not life-threatening but very unpleasant. 
It is horrible. My wife’s mother has recently developed the condition. You can get lots of information from the Ménière’s Society (UK) website.
I’ve had Ménière’s Disease since I was 16 (which is odd since it generally comes after age 35. I didn’t get a formal diagnoses till I was 20) and it is distressing but not deadly or anything.
I recall I was 16 and I kept falling over and I’d thought of everything from brain tumours to MS.
I took an ENG (basically they shot water into each ear, hot and cold water, then flashed lights at me and recorded the brain waves.)
My doctor’s advice was “next time you fall…PICK YOURSELF UP”
This is the best advice you’ll get. To be dizzy and fall over is distressing, but you won’t die from it. Once you accept this, you cope. I would recommend a cane, for me I simply walk near walls or near fences, etc
Valium should be used. It is amazing what it does. Basically the problem with the disease is your ears control your balance. You move, your ears send a message to your brain and this is virtually instant. But with Ménière’s there is a tiny delay, the brain interprets this and the result is dizziness or equilibirum issues
The valium will slow the brain down enough so now the brain and ears are in synch again.
The good news is Meniere’s will get better over time. I have had three bad attacks in my life, where I was taking valium three times a day (5mg each). I also went from 2003 - 2008 without having ANY PROBLEMS at all. Not dizzy once.
So you do go through acute attacks and then the problem goes away basically. Or lessons so you barely notice.
There is also a slight hearing loss but for me, it only occured in my right ear and it isn’t great enough to correct, and I’m used to it now, but if I think about it, THEN I can notice it.
And the loss hasn’t been progressive.
So use valium (diazapam) for acute attacks, and rest assured, the attacks get less and less and when they do come you can cope with them.
It’s funny 'cause I can always tell a problem is going to happen by reading. I can be perfectly still but my eyes go back and forth and I get sick to my stomach.
It’s also kind of cool, because you really see how your balance works. Sometimes the movement of your head “up and down,” will cause issues but not the movement of “side to side” or “back and forth.” and sometimes it a combination of other movements.
OK I’ll shut up but realize it’s distressing but not deadly and over time you get used to the symptoms and your body compensates. And the acute attacks stop and get less over time
I was diagnosed with it almost 20 years ago but after some initial severe attacks I have gotten along pretty well. Recently I have not had any bad attacks. I do have poor balance, tinnitus, and funny little “events” which are like hearing or feeling some big hard to describe change in the environment. I take a diuretic to reduce fluid pressure buildup in the inner ear.
If I could magically fix 3 or 4 things in my life in an instant, Meniere’s wouldn’t be one of them. I’d have to get up to 5 or 6 or 7 things to include it.
Ordinary internet sources should give you plenty of information about Meniere’s so it doesn’t seem very efficient to recite them here.
The main comment I’d put forward is that the degree of disturbance varies markedly from patient to patient and for a given patient, over time. So do not be hasty to draw an inference from a given individual reporting their particular experience.
From having a close friend (and former boss) who was a Meniere’s sufferer:
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Try to avoid getting angry – for him, at least, the increased blood pressure from anger increased the chance of an attack of vertigo.
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If you find yourself vertiginous or dizzy, lie down. Now! Explain if you need to, either before an attack or after lying down.
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Guide people to which ear hears better when you’re having problems hearing, and use your innate ability to lipread while an attack is interfering with your hearing. People will cooperate as needed, without fuss. (When George told me abruptly to turn towards him as I talked, rather than reading from the computer screen, or turned to look 90 degrees away from me so as to angle his ‘good’ ear towards me, I just took as a matter of course what he was doing – and raised my voice slightly to help. No big issue; we both knew he didn’t want pity but just the necessary concessions to his condition, and played it that way.)
Tips I’ve learned over the years, taking care of patients with Meniere’s syndrome.
Remember to avoid or minimize the FACTS
Fatigue
Alcohol
Caffeine
Tobacco
Salt
Paying attention to this does reduce symptoms of vertigo for many people.
Thank you for your input. I know what it IS, I was just wondering how people who have it have adjusted. (realize it can vary in eveyone.)
There’s also Meunière’s syndrome, which is marked by a brown buttery substance on your soles.
I was diagnosed with MD in 2000. For about a year it was really awful–constant dizzy spells with vomiting and falling, tinnitus, brain fog. About a year in I had an extremely violent episode, but the interesting thing is that after that it started to dissipate. Now I have slight dizziness almost all the time, especially when I tilt my head a certain way, and occasionally the dizziness gets worse and affects me more (especially when I’m very frustrated or stressed out or drink too much white wine), but in general I’m doing pretty well. I teach full-time, take long bike rides, go to spinning and Pilates classes, and so forth. My mother went through the same thing around the same time I did and went through about two years of terrible spells but now is also barely affected.
My aunt has had Meniere’s for about 40 years or more. The advice her doctor gave her back in the day was: You will be cruising along in life and WHAM it just hits you. Then you get better and forget about it…and WHAM it hits you.
Are you sure the brown substance isn’t just Manure?
My mother has had Meniere’s for 15 years. Growing up in the rural south meant medical care was almost barbaric, and the treatments she was given were more crippling than the disease itself.
For some people, it’s periodic. For some people, it lessens over time. And for some people, like my mother, it pretty much sucks every day. But it’s not life threatening, and can be lived with. She does love her valium, I tell ya.
Alan Shepard had it.
This is all I can contribute to the thread.
–Cliffy
For all of you with Meniere’s: How has this affected your driving? I don’t have Meniere’s, but I’ve suffered with a balance disorder for the past year, and it looks like it will be something I’ll need to learn to live with. I find that driving on busy freeways is a real challenge because I sometimes need to whip my head from one direction to another, sometimes resulting in a bit of vertigo. Also, driving on steep bridges can be a problem. Driving on a busy road now takes about as much concentration as driving on an icy highway used to.
Has your experience been the same as mine, or am I just lucky?
ETA: I just wanted to add, no, I’m not a menace on the highway. It’s kind of hard to explain: I can stay in my lane just fine by picking a point on the horizon and driving toward it. Also, my depth perception is just fine. I’ve had my wife ride with me several times just to be sure. However, driving is just a chore now, and sometimes damned unpleasant.
I had never heard of this condition but coincidentally just heard an NPR interview this weekend with Kristen Chenoweth, and she suffers from it. The two specific things I recall that she said helped her symptoms were a very low-salt diet and sleeping on an incline surface. FWIW.
My dad was diagnosed with it 10+ years ago. He avoids sodium, and hasn’t had an attack since.
I’ve had MS for about ten years now (I’m 68) and driving is the one thing that alleviates the symptoms. I can’t stand still for more than about thirty seconds without getting dizzy, but any movement, like brisk walking, and the dizziness goes away. I also don’t have problems when sitting down, and apparently driving, which combines sitting and moving, does a double whammy on whatever is going on to cause the Meniere’s to flare up.
I have not had a severe attack in years, and never while driving. I can’t imagine how it would work, but my Dr tells me people manage to pull over and it’s not a realistic safety concern for me.
But I have nearly constant problems with mild dizziness and poor balance. I can’t watch if I’m at a red light and traffic from my left is crossing and turning onto my road in the opposite direction (that is, there’s a wall of traffic orbiting around me throughout my field of vision). I also have a little difficulty if somebody with really loud bass speakers is near me.