I'm going to try something new...

Update as promised...

I am deficient or borderline deficient in all the B vitamins, especially folate.

But there is more to the story:

Based on the symptoms I reported on my initial questionnaire, the doctor advised an additional test for a specific genetic condition.

Blood test reveals I have the MTHFR A1298C Mutation, homozygous. I have it and both my parents had it.

So, I am still trying to understand the implications of this and how it relates to what I've been experiencing - but it makes sense when I consider my life's history so far. There are many details and circumstances going back to my earliest years that now seem highly likely to have been related to this specific condition.

But why all the sudden at age 51 did I wake up one day with Meniere's Disease?

Paraphrasing what my pal Papajoe has said - MD is what the ENT and OTO doctors will say when they don't really know what is wrong with you. They cannot explain where it came from, or why it would come and go sometimes with weeks or months in between symptoms. They cannot explain why the hearing in the affected ear came back for while, and then left again.

BUT... when I look through my daily record of what I eat and how I feel, I can easily correlate feeling better with better attention to nutrition, rest, and exercise.

Feeling better, yes - but not feeling good. I feel much better now in April than I did in January and February. I am attributing this to very careful attention to diet and exercise, lavender baths and a trip to the beach. But I still don't feel good.

All that being what it is, here is the bottom line:

This genetic condition makes it much more difficult for my body to convert normal B vitamins into folate - which is required for the cells to function properly.

The solution: take an already converted form of B vitamin, which I have started today...!

So now I am going ahead with renewed hope - here's the plan:

I will continue the JOH, as this has made a difference for me.
I will continue the no-wheat and no-refined sugar diet, and amp up on the vegetables.
I will continue the cadio exercise daily, and 2-3x weekly weights.
Find more and better ways to relax and enjoy life, including the lavender baths and the trips to the beach

And, I will take these special B vitamins 2x daily.

I expect to be posting a positive and confirming update within 3 months -

Happy days to all...!

JMC

 

Hope it works for you. Diet, rest, and exercise are all important factors.

Bless all,'Ron

 

Interesting stuff ... please keep us updated. Is the genetic condition rare or common?

Funny how a beach always improves things!

 

Update 1 month in.

No big improvement so far, I feel about the same - except for this one event, which was singularly divergent from what I am used to:

At 8:00 PM last night on my way to a friend's gig I suddenly realized that for the first time in almost a year, the tinnitus that has plagued me from the start was virtually gone. I stopped the car, turned off the radio and listened carefully - not there, and no inflammation either.

At the gig I heard everything more clearly, with no headache, very minor tinnitus, and no wobblies - up till about 12:30, then it all came back just like before.

I don't have any ideas to explain this. Maybe my brain just got tired of all the noise?

But the last few days I've been more than usually lacking in discipline with my diet - sodium, wheat, and red wine. All known to be triggers for me in the recent past. Yesterday especially I went way out of range on these 3.

All symptoms back to "normal" today - back to a constant high pitched turbine-like sound, a pulsing lower pitch sound, and a throbbing dull pain behind and below the MM ear inside my skull.

But for a few short hours last night I actually felt good!

 

A few hours is better than nothing!

I've found tinnitus to be entirely random and unpredictable. I finally gave up trying to keep track of all the so-called triggers. It just happens. Mine is pretty much screaming 90 percent of the time.

 

Absolutely - a few hours with no extra noise in my head is indeed a rare blessing..!

I doubled down again today on the 3 triggers as a test if the same result might happen again... no luck so far.