Meniere's Disease Support Group
Meniere's disease is a balance disorder of the inner ear. The symptoms of Meniere's are variable; not all sufferers experience the same symptoms. However, "classic Meniere's" is considered to comprise the following four symptoms: Periodic episodes of rotary vertigo, hearing loss, tinnitus, and a sensation of fullness or pressure in one or both ears.
Started to have temp hearing loss, fullness in the ear this spring and blew it off because it never lasted more than 4 days. i thought the acoustics in my room were wrong and absorbed to much in one ear, loi
I finally mentioned it to the GP and got a referral to the auditory doctor, she insisted i have MD & i was ADAMANT that i didn't have vertigo. Turns out i misunderstood what vertigo was and ironically had my first mild epsd at the clinic waiting to get seen about something esle the month before!
I went to ENT and he stated it couldn't be anything else! I got no tests, got Hdryochlorothiazide, but insisted on a MRI, which will be on the 28 Nov 11.
Not until now have i had anything worse than what i described in the beginning; currently i have ringing, fullness, hearing loss, and sensitivity to sound and background noise like a seashell against my right ear.
What REALLY CONCERNS me is i might have experienced a drop attack last Friday on the 18th. I was standing up, felt like the earth was jolted, i felt a forward motion seemed to loose all my senses, then got everything back. When i got my senses back i was already in a forward motion and was surprised by this, but i didn't actually fall...
Finally my co-worker was diagnosed with MD, but he is little help in telling much about what it's like?!?
I finally mentioned it to the GP and got a referral to the auditory doctor, she insisted i have MD & i was ADAMANT that i didn't have vertigo. Turns out i misunderstood what vertigo was and ironically had my first mild epsd at the clinic waiting to get seen about something esle the month before!
I went to ENT and he stated it couldn't be anything else! I got no tests, got Hdryochlorothiazide, but insisted on a MRI, which will be on the 28 Nov 11.
Not until now have i had anything worse than what i described in the beginning; currently i have ringing, fullness, hearing loss, and sensitivity to sound and background noise like a seashell against my right ear.
What REALLY CONCERNS me is i might have experienced a drop attack last Friday on the 18th. I was standing up, felt like the earth was jolted, i felt a forward motion seemed to loose all my senses, then got everything back. When i got my senses back i was already in a forward motion and was surprised by this, but i didn't actually fall...
Finally my co-worker was diagnosed with MD, but he is little help in telling much about what it's like?!?
Clarification: I have had vertigo before, never as mild as the epsd at the clinic 6 weeks ago, but I always attributed exclusively to high altitude adjustment.
Here is timeline in general about symptoms of MD: since childhood random eye movement side to side (cooool !), Jun'09 ringing in my right ear,but thought it was associated with the bells pals i was recovering from. This spring after watching a movie on the weekend @ home i had fullness in the ear, fluctuating hearing and sensitivity to sound, I attributed to bad acoustics in my apt,
The first "true" epsd was followed by over 5 more before i mentioned it to the GP. This summer had ringing in the right ear, but was very low and didn't last long, maybe a couple of hours. Finally staring on the first week of Nov i had the fullness, ringing (more frequent), fluctuating hearing & sensitivity to sound, vertigo (much more frequent , BUT very minor). Once in a blue moon i still get the random eye movement, but thank GOD no nausea, except a couple of time that were very minor, but i attributed it to other things.
To clarify how I found out; after mentioning to the GP about my temp hearing loss, she refereed me to a auditory doc ( I thought she was over reacting, after all my hearing came back!!), by pure chance i was refereed to a second auditory doctor the day before the first by two different insurances?!?
I came into the appointment thinking she was going to find something VERY trivial, but i could only think of ear wax (which is impossible, cause i am good at keeping ears clean). When i asked if it was normal to loose hearing and for it to come back after a couple of days (barring loud noises i.e. concert, demolitions, etc) she said; "NO"...she was then insistent on whether i had vertigo, I thought "HELL NO!", but saying out loud she said "it sounds like MD" based on my oral history. (i didn't find out about the random eye movement till a few days later when i looked up MD). She told me in 10 years she not ever heard of any temp hearing loss and coming back w/o it being MD, she asked; "Are you sure you don't have vertigo?)
The second doc asked what the first said after i summarized what happened the day before; he said, "lets see what we find today, what tests were done yesterday??" He also had the same conclusion and also was instant on whether or not i had vertigo? I as assured (at the time) that i NEVER had vertigo except when i was hiking @ 9K.
Finally i looked up vertigo and found that i have had for a long time, but was so minor i attributed my feeling to high altitude adjustment (3 ER visits due to it). I saw i was wrong about vertigo and started reading on MD. I found each statement i read was describing what i was going thru or have, then i saw the auditory test results on a "local" site" for the onset of MD....I WAS DEVASTATED!!!! MD makes it my second rare medical condition along with my bad luck of having 8 other "common" medical stuff going on!!!!!!