Meniere's Disease -cured by surgery after suffering 10 years

Great, glad the op worked

I have the choice of the op, but trying to way up the pro's and con's, i know the operation makes you deaf and as i have in both ears, im stuck between keeping my hearing + dizzy or loosing my hearing - dizzy.

I have herd that the op dosent always cure the dizzy spells and tinitus :S, which really leave me still with a big question mark!!!!

Menieres is a terrible illness , but if you can tough it out there is every chance that it will eventually burn itself out. I'm not saying that all the symptoms will dissapear. You may still have problems with balance in busy places where lots of people are moving about you. such as shops , town centres etc. You may also have problems with tinitus and hearing distortion and deafness. One poor fellow i used to work with was in a constant spin and had no option but to have an operation on both his ears.

It cured the dizziness but they damaged a nerve and one side of his face has dropped as though he has had a stroke . He is still able to hear in one ear. I myself developed meniere's when i was a child. The spins were awful and went on for several days at a time.There were long periods of remission , It was not diagnosed as being Meniere's until i was aged 21 then i was offered an operation in London , but i refused it. Touch wood , i no longer get the violent spins , but i still suffer from all the other symptons. unsteadiness , agrophobia , tinitus , deafness , depression , anxiety ,inability to concentrate (brain fog) . None of these are much fun to live with but at least they are no where near as debilitating as the spin attacks were. Hope your meniere's burns out too . Fingers crossed.

John

hi there,

reading the posts here..iv had virtigo..3months..i found it made me feel week in the limbs and arms..heavy seeling in them,,does anyone else get this with the spins..when i came out of hospital i had to use a walking trolly thing..as i could not hold my head up..felt as if my head was to heavy..thats ok now tho..for i time i thought id would have probs with that.

any one else?

marie.

Hi my mother too suffers with menieres. The tinnitus was bought on a side effect of radiotherapy for a tuma that sat in her nasolpharynx.

She is only 49 and her quality of life is so poor that she is unable to work and if she gets enthusiastic to travel on her own I always get worried for her. She can sleep for days on end and moving around the house doing the simplest of chores of getting ready takes the energy out of her. She has tinnitus in both ears and her dizzy spells are constant. Everyday is a nightmare for her. She had radiotherapy at Guy's in London and hasn't been offered an op.

I am now working on a project for my degree to design a beautiful and modern stabilizing aid, but in fact I'm begining to wonder that if the attacks are so unpredictable the likely hood of travelling on your own is unlikely to be done. I'm not sure if a stabilizing aid is really going to help with dizzy spells. what do the majority of you think? Do any of you travel with walking sticks and does it really help in your journeys? Are you too embarassed to carry a walking stick much like my mother who associates the traditional walking stick with being old? And walking sticks are really an aid to generate momentum while walking. The stabilizing aids on the market are so ugly! And I definately wouldn't want to carry one of those four legs that sprout off the end of a hospital crush like pole.

Do those of you who suffer experience hightened discomfort when in cold and windy conditions? Mum certainly avoids going out if its cold and windy.

Those of you who think that your lives could improve if only there was a.....(what ever you think) on the market than please let me know and may be it could one day be on the shop floors.

I really sympathise and know how difficult the conditions can be to live with so please help me to hopefully be on a road to help support the symptoms if poss.

Thanks

Jaya

[quote:f8770666b7=\"M K Sapra\"]My mother was suffering with meniere's disease almost for 10 years. Sudden attacks while walking, eating were becoming as frequest as thrice in week. Almost all the medicines tried. Finally it was declared as meniere's disease and she was operated by Dr. Kakkar, Head, ENT, All India Medical Sciences, New Delhi in 1984. Initially she was asked to take Vertin tablets. Later she stopped taking now. She is fine now and relieved , ofcourse hearing loss is substantial in the respective ear.[/quote:f8770666b7][color=darkblue:f8770666b7][/color:f8770666b7]

Hi Jaya

Its been a while since i last had a severe Menieres attack. But i will tell you one thing. When i did suffer from them the last thing i wanted was some sort of walking stick/frame to make me more mobile .I should imagine it would be very difficult to position oneself behind a walking frame when the frame like everything else is whizzing round the room at an alarming speed. During an attack i stayed flat out on the bed or floor , except for the odd trip to the bathroom which usually consisted of a series of lurching movements crashing into walls and furniture in the process. In fact i think that death was top of my wish list . But that wasnt to be . So i had to be content to have someone quietly come and dab my brow with a cool damp flannel.

In the latter stages of Menieres perhaps there is a case for a walking frame if one is just feeling unsteady on one feet .

Hope you do find a way to help reduce the impact that Menieres has on peoples lives.

John

What type of surgery did your mother have done?

I ve had Menieres for 4yrs and am finding it absolute hell to cope with.My daughter keeps saying I should ask about surgery but I have heard it is often unsuccessful.I get attacks in clusters and they have become more frequent and last much longer.I take Bethahitine and anti-sickness medication but they do n't seem to have much effect. I am on other medication too for other health problems.Do you know anything about Serc which seems to keep popping up in forums. Any help would be greatly appreciated,I feel so isolated and am afraid to go out alone.