One of the first posts I ever made I was trying to see if what I have is Meniere's, since my symptoms are so weird. 1 attack of apparent vestibular neuritis in the right ear in 2022, and then 3 more in the left since October 2023 After an attack, are you more dizzy and then slowly recover? For me it takes 6 weeks to 2 months, and I get a lot better, but still lingering symptoms.
My problem is I've had like 5 big attacks in the last 18 months and all of them have been different... so I can't really answer this other than to say no I don't think I've had this happen. My latest attack has been going on for about 3 weeks though and I finally gave in and took Prednisone and appear to be recovering. The other times I have really bad vertigo for a couple hours to a couple days and recover almost instantly when it does go away. The hearing loss, tinnitus and ear pressure typically last a bit longer though.
Do you know if you have Meniere's? When you day vertigo, is it like you can't walk it's so bad? Or just dizzy like me? When you recover do you have li Gering symptoms afterwards? Have you gotten tested, and the tests show your vestibular system is actually damaged? (Like with a vEMP test)
I've seen 2 different ENT's who won't 100% say I have Meniere's but are pretty sure I do. My bad vertigo attacks are so bad I can't hardly even move my head without getting extremely nauseous to the point of throwing up and I am basically stuck in bed trying not to move a muscle until it passes. My balance is terrible during these attacks. After my 3rd attack (which was about 10 months ago) I had low level lingering dizziness. It never went away until about 6 weeks later I saw an ENT for the 1st time and he suspected Meniere's and put me on Prednisone for 6 days and followed it with Triamterene which I have been taking daily since then. From the 1st day I started the Triamterene my dizziness went away and has mostly stayed away. I do get short bouts here and there usually when my bad ear is flared up and my balance is off. There will be lots of times that my ear is flared up and my balance is off but I am not necessarily dizzy. I suspect the Triamterene is helping there, but I'm still trying to figure all of this out... My last bad attack was a couple months ago and it came on very suddenly while I was driving to work. I was able to drive myself back home just fine, but when I got out of the car my balance was so bad I had to hold on to stuff to make it into the house. I got so dizzy I had to stop at the bathroom on the way to my bedroom to throw up. I was bedridden for about 3 hours and then it went away as sudden as it came on and I felt just fine again. About 3-1/2 weeks ago my hearing in my bad ear dropped. I took some Prednisone that didn't seem to help and I went to see my ENT to get a steroid injection in my ear and that also didn't seem to help (Sometimes they are amazing and sometimes they don't seem to do anything...) At the 3 week mark of my hearing seeming to just be getting worse and worse I gave in and dug out my stronger dose of Prednisone and that brought my hearing back up but I still have a lot of pressure in that ear and off and on dizziness. Throughout these 3-1/2 weeks I have had a few instances where I am mildly dizziness for an hour or 2 and then better for a while. A couple nights ago was probably the worst of it. I would get too dizzy to want to do much and lay down in bed and play on my phone for 10 minutes or so and I'd feel better. I could get up and do stuff for 10 minutes or so and then have to go lay down and repeat the process. After doing that about 3 times I just went to bed and have been fine the last couple days. I actually felt back to my normal self for the most part yesterday. I have not had a vEMP test. I saw an audiologist who put camera glasses on my eyes and spun me around in a chair a whole bunch (awful experience) while measuring eye movement. That test showed like a 15% impairment on my Meniere's side, but they said that was within the normal range of a person so it didn't really tell us much. I hadn't started the Triamterene at that point and was still dealing with the constant low level dizziness.
//From the 1st day I started the Triamterene my dizziness went away and has mostly stayed away Ok, that sounds like Meniere's
That's what my ENT told me to. I had a 2 week follow up after starting the Triamterene and he asked how I was doing and I said the Triamterene made me feel much better. He said that's a pretty good indicator that you probably have Meniere's. By that point my balance test came back normal. My MRI came back normal and I did a blood test for autoimmune diseases that all came back negative. When I got my 2nd opinion with an ENT at the University of Utah she said that I hadn't had enough attacks that met the criteria for Meniere's but based on ruling out most everything else Meniere's seemed the most likely.
It's good to know what it is so you can treat it. My situation doesn't seem to fall into classifying as Menieres. I tried low sodium for a few days, but I didn't feel any better. I'll eat lots of salt and I won't get any attack. Then again I haven't tried diuretics It appears as a recurring vestibular neuritis, and Dr. Gacek is telling me that's what it is, pushing his viral theory. Saying that in my case the attack is happening in the nerve as opposed to the labyrinth. But who the hell knows. I'll get an attack and then have 2 months of dizziness, which in some ways is worse than getting one short acute attack where you can't do anything for a day and then getting better
I tried low sodium for about 6 weeks and I think I felt better overall (probably because I was eating healthier) but I started getting small bouts of dizziness again which I hadn't experienced for months after starting the Triamterene. I stopped the diet at that point and went back to eating high amounts of sodium and had no real change in symptoms over than the little bits of dizziness were now back. Whether that was caused by the low sodium or not I don't know. I suspect it was a coincidence though.
I started having some mild dizzy spells and ears ringing in the middle 1990s. My doctor at that time said it was probably just from listening to loud music or something. Well I had a major vertigo spell in 1998, vomiting and dehydration. My wife and Mom took me to the ER. The ER doctor said it sounded like Meniere's Disease. My doctor referred me to the ENT at Little Rock, Arkansas, UAMS. I was diagnosed with Meniere's. They put me on Triamterene/HTCZ. That helped for years. It finally came back with on and off vertigo spells. I tried everything. It seems when you think something is "working" you find out it wasn't, with more vertigo spells. I missed a lot of work because of the spells. I would have them at work, on the way to work, in the middle of the night, right before work, I just never knew when. One time I stayed dizzy for 2 months straight. I couldn't drive, and walking was hard to do without getting nauseous and vomiting. My wife tried to get me to put in for Disability. It finally went away. But I still had the vertigo spells on and off. I had the shunt surgery in 2014 and that worked for 5 years. Started having the spells 3 or 4 times a week. I put in for Disability in 2021 and got it. I have it in both ears now, went deaf in my right ear, also have Positional Vertigo, have anxiety and depression, went blind in my left eye, nothing to do with Meniere's, went to other Specialists, but am still alive and enjoying life. I've learned to live with it. I have pillows in our vehicles, and I have found the best thing to do when having a spell is to lay on my left side 'because of my Positional Vertigo" and get still and close my eyes. My ENT can't believe it hasn't 'burned out' by now, saying mine is a rare case.