I agree with what June and Intrepid said, trust the acyclovir. Most tolerate it very well including me who is extremely medication sensitive, I did not feel well on valcyclovir. But if you need the proper dosage of acyclivr and hopefully your doctor will oblige. You can go to our database and print out the the pdfs files that shows over 30 studies that back up a viral cause to show to your dr along with the pdf that Dr Gacek wrote. meclizine does little for vertigo for me but helps me if I feel dizzy from a sinus issue. Vertigo is when the room or your surroundings spin around you and you lose all equilibrium. As if you are in the middle of a merry go round and everything spins around you.
In case it helps: I find that an acupressure wrist band does a good job of taking the edge of my dizzines and/or nausea.
So I didn't take any acyclovir today. Because I only have one pill. I am going to take it now I felt vertigo coming on several times but I popped in a meclyzine each time and it seemed to ward of the vert/dizziness. So I get vert/dizziness nausea unbalance can't walk when I take acyclovir. But when I dont take acyclovir I am still getting vert/dizzy. (Could be there is still enough acyclovir in my system to cause the symtoms). My ear is starting to clog up again so I know the acyclovir is helping with that. So far my best days have been with a morning start of 5 mg of diazepam and 800 Mgs of acyclovir then another acyclovir late afternoon and one before bed those days I have good hearing and no vert/dizzy spells Good night. I will post what my dr and I come up with tomorrow Bad news today. My wife's insurance is going up by 7,000 this year. A family coverage of 18,000 for year. That's half her salary. Sorry I guess I should have started a new thread somewhere else. Please disregard this paragraph
So far my best days have been with a morning start of 5 mg of diazepam and 800 Mgs of acyclovir then another acyclovir late afternoon and one before bed those days I have good hearing and no vert/dizzy spells My suggestion is not to take the valium unless you feel vertigo coming on. See if the 2400 mg a day of acyclovir keeps vertigo under control, but that may take a couple of weeks or so. If you take valium every morning w/o the pending feeling of vertigo, you will not know if the acyclovir is working to control the vertigo, plus from what I hear the body gets used to a dose of valium and you will need to increase it to get the same effect.
Thanks Vicki and Bella I tried the acyclovir last week without the Valium on Wednesday. When I got the vertigo the i took the Valium and it did nothing Thurs and fri and Saturday I took the Valium in the morning with the acyclovir and had no vertigo I had enough acyclovir to take three (spread out). But Sunday I didn't have any Valium and within an hour of taking the acyclovir I had vertigo Yesterday I had to keep taking meclizine about every hour
Good news I saw dr today and got acyclovir and Valium I will stay on this for three months. I took both around nine o'clock and now it's 2:20 and no vertigo. However. Because I only had one acyclovir yesterday my ear was getting the full-ness pressure. It's a little better now.
I still would not take valium as a preventative measure. IMO that could be dangerous leading you to higher and higher dosages and an addiction. Glad you were able to get more acyclovir.
It is biologically unrealistic to think that symptoms will abate immediately upon taking acyclovir. Acyclovir does not treat or abate symptoms; it slowly, over weeks or months, chemically interferes with the herpes virus's ability to replicate, to make new virions. Acyclovir can be doing its work whether or not one has vertigo or any other symptom. It simply takes time, again, weeks or months. --John of Ohio
Hi Santa I agree with the advice of several people. Valium should not be used as a preventative otherwise it will lose its effectiveness when you have a bad attack. Best listen to Vicki about when to use the valium. The acyclovir just like Llysine can take some time to work effectively. We all know how frustrating and horrible vertigo, vomiting and dizziness are but a measured approach will give whatever you are taking a proper chance of working. If after trying the acyclovir for a period and if it doesn't work you may want to consider a combination of serc ( betahistine) as I found that a great preventative with the valium handy to stop or shorten an attack. But let's hope the acyclovir does the job for you. Wishing you well Frank
Thanks for the warnings. The fact is if I don't take the Valium I can't work. I only had six bouts of vertigo - three in 2013 and three in 2014. Both years it was between January and May. I didn't have the full-ness pressure in my ear until after the first flare-up this year. The full-ness pressure would not go away. The full-ness pressure lead me to Joe Bongiorno and his web site led me to JOH and this forum. After reading Joe's Bongiorno's website I did a trial of fluconozol and acyclovir. For some reason I did not have the vertigo symptons, but in four days my ear cleared up. Then I did just fluconozol by itself to see which helped me and after 10 days my ear was still clogged. Still, no vertigo. I only started having these episodes of vertigo when I started taking acyclovir and the natural antivirals that JOH suggests. I thought the combination must be too strong to begin with. I know JOH says start slowly- introducing one thing at a time. But, I didn't start slow. I did acyclovir and the new JOH regiment of lysine, lemon bilflavinoids and vinpocetin. I got vertigo so bad I was throwing up and sick for hours ( like the worst hangover ever) So I tried just the lysine first thing in morning on empty stomach, but I have gerd and baretts syndrome and the lysine on an empty stomache caused heart burn. I do have to take prevacid every day for the gerd. I have stomache cells that have come up into the esophagus. So then I just did acyclovir 800 mg 3 x's a day. And I had vertigo almost every day. I do not have rotational vertigo. I have a sensation of overwhelming loss of balance, can't turn my head left or right without losing it. And I can't walk. I start overheating and get nauseous. And, it last three hours. So, therefore I can't work or drive. And I need to work and drive. I'm self employed-no sick pay. Do you think I should be doing a lower dose of acyclovir?
No offense but your posts are confusing you had said in previous posts: "Yesterday I only took the morning dose of Lysine, vinpocetine and lemon bioflavs and had vertigo within two hours that lasted 3-4 hours. Last night I took 800 mg of acyclovir and this morning another 800 mg of acyclovir and I haven't had vertigo today. I have not taken any lysine, vinpocetine or lemon bioflavs today. I just took another 800 mgs of acyclovir and I will take one before bed." "My ear was still a little full this morning but cleared up around 10:00 am. So, for now it's just going to be acyclovir." "My next good news. This is second day on only acyclovir and the fullness is gone and .....NO VERTIGO!!! : Now you are saying, "So then I just did acyclovir 800 mg 3 x's a day. And I had vertigo almost every day" So not sure how to respond. But if you do not have rotational vertigo you should look into MAV..migraine associated vertigo
Hi Vicki, I'm sorry If I am confusing you. I always seem to have trouble getting my point across when writing instead of speaking. I thank you very much for your responses and I am very impressed with your devotion to the friends that come to this forum. I will try to explain some of those statements that confused you. August 7 I said: "Yesterday I only took the morning dose of Lysine, vinpocetine and lemon bioflavs and had vertigo within two hours that lasted 3-4 hours. I didn't take any valium that day Last night I took 800 mg of acyclovir and this morning another 800 mg of acyclovir and I haven't had vertigo today. I have not taken any lysine, vinpocetine or lemon bioflavs today. I just took another 800 mgs of acyclovir and I will take one before bed." "My ear was still a little full this morning but cleared up around 10:00 am. So, for now it's just going to be acyclovir." "My next good news. This is second day on only acyclovir and the fullness is gone and .....NO VERTIGO!!! : You are referring to the 7th and 8th of August and that's when I started to take the valium in the morning. "So then I just did acyclovir 800 mg 3 x's a day. And I had vertigo almost every day" This happened a few months ago when I was trying to decide if my full-ness relief was from Fluconozol or Acyclovir I haven't looked into MAV. I guess because of the name I figured it has to do with migraine headaches. And, I don't have any. Tomorrow I will look into MAV The acyclovir might not put the meneires into remission right away but it does clear up the ear full-ness pressure.
acyclovir takes a while to successfully suppress the virus. also it is common with MAV not to have headaches. Good luck! Keep us posted.
It might take months to interfere with the virus's ability to replicate. BUT, it only takes a few days to relieve the full-ness pressure and brain fog in my case. Now if I can just find a way to stop having vertigo. Yesterday, I took 800 mg of acyclovir and 5 mg of valium in morning. I felt good until 4:00 when vertigo hit me. I didn't have a valium on me and I couldn't get one until 5:00. At 5 I took a 5 mg of valium and my afternoon doze of acyclovir. I had to go to bed and sleep for 3 hours and then I was fine. I am now going to carry a valium with me and as soon as I feel the vertigo I will take one. Waiting an hour to take the valium didn't seem to help the vertigo. When the vertigo hits me I can't look to the left or right. If I do I can start spinning. I refuse to let the spinning start. At least I think I am controlling the spinning by not looking to the left or right. I dont know what triggers my vertigo attacks. I was just sitting and playing my one man band instruments and entertaining folks at an assisted living facility. I had just done the same thing an hour earlier at a different facility. Santa Thanks John for all your contributions to help others. It is biologically unrealistic to think that symptoms will abate immediately upon taking acyclovir. Acyclovir does not treat or abate symptoms; it slowly, over weeks or months, chemically interferes with the herpes virus's ability to replicate, to make new virions. Acyclovir can be doing its work whether or not one has vertigo or any other symptom. It simply takes time, again, weeks or months. --John of Ohio I did fine an interesting web site. I haven't had much time to read all the good ideas in it yet. But it might be worth checking out for some of us here on the forum. http://www.menieres-disease.ca/healing_process.htm
as hard as it is to accept, getting relief from MM symptoms especially vertigo can be a long process. If you are looking for a quick fix, there isn't any except for surgery, and that doesn't always work, afaik. Try and be patient. Most on these forums have found a way to get symptom relief, but it takes time and trial and error. Try and Stick with the acyclovir and after a month or two make a decision if it helps you or not.