A Successful New Approach to Meniere's Disease -- Official John of Ohio regimen

wait...a sinus rinse?? couldn't that drown you??

 

hollymom, songbird, thank you for your responses. I will check with my GP next week, have an appointment. I will not check with my wonderful ENT as I did once ask about herbal supplements and he seems to think diurectic and no salt are the answer. I agree I do not need the vertiheel. Fluid buildup is the problem. Not looking for a cure, just some releif from the loud tinnitus.

 

lol.......drowning my sorrows huh???? lol.....

 

newflady - just couldn't help myself =)

chianti - good luck, I might have the same doctor as you! He's not big on anything but what he prescribes either.

 

I tried the duiretic and the low salt. No difference. So I'll stick with the John regime. It takes time to kick in for most people - 2 - 4 or even 6 months. So be patient.

SB

 

Hi John

I experienced my first vertigo attack at the young age of 20 in 1990. I’ve mainly controlled my symptoms via weekly allergy injections and a very low sodium diet. Even though I haven’t had a vertigo attack for about 15 yrs, I still have the constant ringing in my left ear along with hyper sensitivity, dizziness, brain fog, etc. In my case, I especially notice an increase in symptoms after a hard workout at the gym or a tough bike ride.
I’m very exciting about giving your regiment a try for at least 6 months. Regarding the third component L-Lsysine, is it necessary if you don’t have herpes? I’m more than willing to follow the regiment to the letter but if a component doesn’t make sense for my situation, then I would like to omit it if possible.

Thanks
Pedro

 

You should definately take the lysine. Like most with Meniere's, you have never had an external herpes sore. But there are dozens of varieties of herpes viruses, not just those that cause cold sores or other human diseases. Meniere's, according to an increasing number of physicians and students of the disease, is in most cases caused by a herpes infection in the inner ear, unseen and otherwise undetected by either the victum or examining physicians. Herpes viruses are famous for this, hiding secretly in the cells of nerves and tissues.

And that's where the lysine is so important. It can penetrate into cells and jamb up the viruses' attempts to replicate and take over cells.

I recommend that you go the full route with the lysine, at 3000 mgs a day, as described in the regimen write-up.

And understand this. Because you've had Meniere's for so long, the viruses are really deep and numerous in your inner ear or nerve cells. In cases like this, it can take as long as six months on the regimen before anything actually starts to get better. That'a a LONG time to wait for any sort of relief. Perhaps levels of relief can happen faster. I hope they do.

But in any case, be persistent. In the end, the relief is worth it.

And please keep us posted on your progress every month or so.

My best.

--John of Ohio

 

Thanks for the quick reply.
Is 6 months a long time to wait? Not to me. I’ve been living with this illness for almost 20 yrs now. Another 6, 8, 12 months is nothing compared to what I’ve been through. Believe me, I’m not expecting a miracle, although I would take one in a heartbeat. If I can simply get “some” relief from my dizziness and hearing hyper sensitivity, I would consider it a huge success. More importantly, if I can prevent it from spreading into my good right ear, I would consider this to be my miracle. Based on my last hearing test at the House Ear Clinic in Los Angles (Dr Derebery is my doctor), my problem ear has lost about 75% of its hearing. My good right ear is still normal but over the last two years I have felt some strange sensations in there which scares the hell out of me to be honest. The thought of losing my good ear just makes me sick to my stomach.
I just ordered all components as per your regimen. I’ll keep you posted on a monthly basis for better or worse. If nothing else, I’ll serve as a good data point for all to read.

Thanks again
Pedro

 

Pedro,

If I could add my own experiences... I used to have terrible fullness and PAIN in my left ear. Pain that would come and go and really feel rather uncomfortable. I have found in my time taking the regime that the fullness is greatly reduced (not yet gone in total) and the tinnitus is manageable. Not gone, but better.

I also see an osteopath who is working on repairing my postural problems - he believes that fluid build up is being caused by a forward rotating spine which is putting pressure on my neck and jaw to rebalance my posture (it's complicated...I've had a few car accidents) and that if he can relieve the constant muscle pressure and jaw constriction, both the fullness and tinnitus will be relieved by about 80% of what it is now. It seems to be working, I do have relief after the treatments. In the meantime, the regime works on the possible other problems - the viral infection, the inflammation and healing the cells. It all works!

So take the reghime, be patient, continue with your exercise and let us know what happens!

Songbird.

 

Songbird
I’m already on my way. I was able to buy everything at a local Vitamin Shoppe expect the Lemon Bioflavonoid tablets (ordered from Nutrition Express) and the Cocculus Compositum (ordered from Amazon). Regarding the Cocculus Compositum, where are other folks buying this from? Here is the Amazon link so I hope I bought the right one. There is a review in there which also mentioned John’s regimen.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006ON5GQ/ref=ox_ya_oh_product
Osteopath? Sounds interesting so please let us know how well it works.

Thanks
Pedro

 

Pedro:

I can't comment on the Cocculus, John will do that for you, I'm sure. I never used it. The osteopath has managed to relief several outstanding problems for me that are MM unrelated (well, at first blush..) I have had low back pain for years that culminated in a lot of pain a few years ago, and tingling in my hands and feet. Well, that's pretty much gone. He's working on my pelvis...getting it to rotate into a normal neutral position instead of forward. This forward position is causing a misalignment of my spine, neck and jaw. He believes this is causing the tinnitus and fullness. I'm hopeful that it's the answer. After the treatments, the fullness is better as is the tinnitus. But the body is slow to heal, of course, after 30 or some years of this.

I also see a NUCCA chiropractor for the upper cervical spine adjustments. My osteo doesn't think much of that... But, we'll see... the NUCCA treatments have totally removed my vertigo for over 2 years now. But I am seeking a more permanent solution through the osteopath.

I'll keep you posted, as I hope you will with the rest of us!

 

Thanks John for such helpful information. I am new to the site and not sure how it works.
I've been dizzy for over 2 years, still seeing many doctor's without a diagnosis. It pretty much sucks.
I was afraid to come to one of the sites, cause I scare easily. Reading all the stories here has made me
feel less alone and more convinced then ever that MM is probably what I've got.

I'm going to start on the vitamins right away.

Thank you,
Gin

 

I'm new to the site, just ran across this thread, and have ordered the ingredients of the regimen to try. In my case, I have bilateral high-pitched tinnitus that my ENT characterizes as endolymphatic hydrops, but no vertigo/dizziness and no significant hearing loss. My ENT suggested low-sodium diet and cutting down on caffeine/chocolate, and gave me a trial bottle of Lipoflavonoids Plus to try. So far I haven't detected any improvement from the Lipoflavonoids, and am unsure whether the dietary changes are helping. The biggest trigger and fix for my symptoms seems to be related to sleeping position -- sleeping flat increases the tinnitus, and sleeping with head elevated lessens it.

Interestingly, my mother had nearly identical symptoms most of her adult life. Her tinnitus finally went away in her 70s when she was started on a diuretic to treat congestive heart failure. My ENT didn't want to prescribe a diuretic yet because of side-effects.

I'd say my family history and the pattern of my symptoms seems to point to some inherited issue with the inner ear structure that eventually falls prey to fluid buildup over time. It's not really seeming likely to be virus-related. I'll certainly give the entire regimen a try, though, and if I get improvement I'll carefully remove supplements one by one to try to pin down what helps and what doesn't.

When I get to the point of considering which supplements to remove, I gather that they tend to fall into these groups:

-- Bioflavonoid, vinpocetine, ginkgo, vitamins C and E, and MSM are either vasodilators or primarily related to vascular health.

-- L-lysine, beta 1,3 glucan and vertigoheel/cocculus compositum are the ones that are more specifically antivirals.

Is that more or less correct? Thanks!

 

Just throwing in a comment.

A few weeks ago, I commented that I had been experiencing what feels like high pressure throughout my head and neck. Like you'd feel if you bent over and blood rushed to your head. My blood pressure is fine, so that's not the issue. It's aggravating, and I worry about a "blowout" with a symptom like that.

Some others here said they had similar symptoms.

I started thinking about some of the JOH ingredients. Vinpocetine in particular seems to be used to increase blood flow in the head and is said to improve memory/cognition as a result. My concern was that maybe all of this increased blood flow was causing the uncomfortable feeling in my head. As an experiment, I stopped taking vinpo in the mornings for a week. I continued to take it at night.

I have seen an improvement - maybe 75% less intensity during the day. Does this seem logical?

 

I've taken the plunge and ordered everything on the list, so I'm just waiting for the postman to arrive (from lots of different places!) so that I can get started.

For anyone reading this from the UK, I'd like to add my experiences of where the various supplements can be purchased, because it's not very straightforward and took quite a bit of Googling and checking to make sure I had the right ones:

The following were easy to find - I ordered them from Holland & Barrett online:

L-lysine
Gingkgo Biloba
C-200 Complex vitamin C
E-400 vitamin E
MSM

The following were harder to track down but I ordered them from Health Monthly UK via Amazon.co.uk:

Beta Glucans
Vinpocetine

The final 2 could not be purchased in the UK, but I managed to track them down via Amazon.com:

Cocculus Compositum from HealthEGoods
Lemon Bioflavonoids from Vitamin Shoppe.

The P&P are utterly prohibitive (£51 on goods costing £80!!!) and I played around with the quantities a bit so that at least the cost of the goods was higher than the charges! Also, I figured that buying in bulk was a sensible precaution. I'm now waiting to see what HMRC slap on the parcels in duties....

I hope this helps.

 

You sure know your way around the web!!! Whew!

 

I had my friend Google to help

 

well, when looking at my resources, Google, Net, bing and http://..., you're still doing a lot better that I am!

 

questions for John!

1) what is the reasoning behind taking lysine on an empty stomach? My naturopath said to take it with food.

2) if one confirms that they have HSV1 or 2, should they try acyclovir during attacks? I've read it helps some with MM.

Thanks!

 

Joe,

Most of the sites and information resources on lysine-against-herpes say to take it without food. The reason, as i understand it is this. When taken with food and so digested, it mixes with all the other 20 or so amino acids in all foods (proteins) and fails to reach a sufficient concentration in the blood. It is pulled out and metabolized along with the other dietary amino acids. When taken alone, a higher concentration can be gained in the circulating blood.

I'm not certain that herpes simplex 1 or 2 are the actual viruses embedded in the Meniere's ear. But yes, acyclovir does have a decided anti-Meniere's result with most Meniere's cases because acyclovir suppresses all herpes viruses, HPV-1 and -2, and all the others. There are probably several dozen human herpes viruses, most of which are not yet well characterized.

Taking any antiherpetic, such as acyclovir, famvir, or any of the other prescription drugs to counter herpes, or taking l-lysne (non-prescription), are not likely to be really helpful during either a Meniere's attack or a herpes simplex attack. That's because none of these agents actually kill the virus. In fact, the virus is never alive. It's just a cluster of nucleic acids that hijacks the metabolism of an infected cell, chemically telling it to synthesize more viruses. The antiherpetic drugs and lysine merely slow down the virus replication process, which means that the existing viruses just have to wear out, with no new ones being produced. This can take weeks or months to gain full control of a herpes infection.

--John of Ohio