Menieres and weight training

Read some of the threads regarding shoulder issues and TMJD that preceded inner ear symptoms with some people. If any of this is true with you weight lifting when your body is not properly aligned can greatly Agrivate jaw, and by extension, ear symptoms. Do you clench your jaw when you lift?

 

I work out a lot. But, when lifting I do not hold my breath. When I start the lift I start letting the air out.

I have been working 3 twelve hour days in my yard. Lots of heavey lifting, crawling Under a shed so we could block it and jack it up and move it lots of concrete and wood blocks. Lots of jacking. It was a 3,000 pound shed. All day yesterday shoveling dirt. Preparing ground and digging a 6 foot deep and 12 foot wide hole for above ground pool.

No dizzies no vertigo. And totally forgot I had tinnitus

Totally draining work. Almost fell asleep eating dinner.

I hope you don't quit working out. But be careful with the holding breath.

 

I do a good bit of lifting as well. My disease seems to be in remission, thanks to JOH, anti-virals and a few other odds and ends. But, while I was in the middle of the worst time of my life several months ago, I would still try to get into the gym. I never actually had an attack initiated by my lifting though. I did it mostly to try to get healthier in the hopes that being healthier in general would do good things for the Meniere's. Not sure if it did or not, but it did help to keep me sane.

I also hold my breath during certain lifts. Anything that requires significant core stabilization is benefited by holding your breath. It allows you to tighten your abdominal muscles which makes for a rigid back, which protects your posture and consequently your discs and nerves. Nothing wrong with that. It does result in a short term increase in blood pressure, but that goes away immediately after you simply take a breath. It's called a valsalva maneuver. And you should be doing it with any heavy barbell squats or deadlifts. If you find you can't without aggravating the stuff going on in your ears, then I would stop using those movements or do them with less intensity until you have this more under control. You'll hurt yourself under a heavy barbell if you allow your posture to lax due to not holding your breath.

I don't use as many really heavy barbell lifts now adays, though for different reasons. I was a power lifter in my mid to late 20's. Overuse injuries in my back and shoulders have forced me to alter how I train. I do a sort of modified crossfit right now. I don't do a whole lot of barbell movements. I mostly do body weight exercises(some with added weight) with some movements with dumbbells. So I'll do dumbbell clean and jerks or snatches in higher reps. Those can actually be beneficial for the deadlifting and squatting as they act as dynamic effort/speed work. If you can keep the squatting and deadlifting in there with lowered frequency but supplement with some oly movements done as metcon work, that might help you keep your strength up while limiting the amount of valsalva maneuvers you have to use.

I feel your pain though. The limitations this disease force us into just adds insult to injury. Not only does it take my ears from me, but it also takes the things I love most from me as well.

 

I have been athletic all my life and did some light weight training leading up to my diagnosis of MD and MAV.

I am taking anti-virals, JOH and OTC and now monolaurin plus supplements for migraine prevention. Everything helps to some degree but the cause and effect equation of flare-ups remains a total mystery.

The disease for a couple of years has slowed me way down. I think walking is the single most powerful exercise I have been able to keep up mostly due to the inability to drive and simply loving to do it. Heading back into the gym soonish to do more yoga, swimming and gentle things that help my balance and stretch things out.

If I were gonna go with this into any heavy lifting routine, I'd darned sure see a Chiropractor of the highest order that works with athletes and can give you very specific advise about weights, reps etc with your condition. Probably warrents adjustment and professional input.

Just want to point out that although I have been more in bounce-back mode but still widely varying symptoms, I did go out at night for a walk and missed fully clearing the curb (my cognitive impairement from MD includes visual-spacial distortion) from the sidewalk to the street and landing hard and smashing my head on the pavement. A full week in bed with ice and meds and two Chiro adjustments and I am pretty good after a week. This said just to point out that we can adjust our workouts to reflect our new body landscapes proactively or we can learn the hard way like I did.

 

Santa makes an excellent point. You should breathe throughout the movement. By holding your breath, you may be putting additional stress, in the form of pressure, on the affected ear. May I suggest that you take a deep breath which you exhale during the press.

Are you taking hydrochlorothiazide, otherwise know as 'water pills'? This stuff drains your muscles of water and potassium. I cannot take it because it robs me of energy when I weight lift or when I ride my mountain bike. I generally feel normal all other times, but if I have to do something which causes me to use my large muscle groups, I tire very quickly Plus, this stuff causes me to have periods of hypotension, one of the symptoms of which is light headedness.

I have noticed that any activity which increases my heart rate, as when I'm weight lifting or doing cardio, seems to keep my vertigo episodes at bay. I remember a time when I started to have an episode as I walked into the gym. I got into my cardio routine and the vertigo abated until about 20 minutes post workout, where it came full strength. But, my point is that I've yet to have an episode when I'm riding my bike or in the gym.

I am very interested to know if others have the same experience? Has anyone here had an attack during exercise?

 

Interesting thread, I used to go to gym before menieres a lot and loved it, ever since I've been getting the feeling like a boat everyday and muscle or neck pain. I haven't gone. Another reason I haven't gone is because if the cause of my meniere's is herpes and I'm doing weight training that increases cortisol and stress which could activate the herpes (that's even if I have it). I'm also waiting for a bunch of tests before I try the antivirals.

It's good to hear some of you still work out, I tend to walk more these days and sometimes jump rope and treadmill. I find the increased heart rate exercises help me a bit in not feeling like im on a boat.

 

This advice will get someone hurt. I know that sounds rude, forgive me. I don't intend it that way. This is a decade worth of heavy lifting experience and listening to the strongest men on the planet talk about lifting. I know it sounds like common sense... breath while you lift. But for certain movements like barbell back squats and deadlifts done under a heavy load, you are asking for injury. So either don't do those movements, or hold your breath during the movement for the safety of your spine.

As an example of what I'm talking about. Solidify your abdominals and back, contract and tighten all the muscles in your torso. Push down hard on your abdominal muscles. Imagine that a heavy weight is trying to fold your torso in half and you have to resist it's force. Then try to breath. You will find it difficult to do AND maintain that rigidity of your torso.... impossible while doing heavy back squats or deadlifts. If you can't use the valsalva maneuver without giving yourself a vertigo attack or making your Meniere's symptoms worse, then don't do heavy deadlifts and back squats. If you are going to do the deadlifts and squats, maintaining proper posture for your torso is critical to the health of your spine, and you can't do that while breathing "normally" under a heavy load.

 

You are correct, you should be careful with your advice...

"Research indicates that there are specific situations when holding your breath for a short period of time can pay off big in the weight room. That said, some of us are rarely in those situations, and the risks of intentionally holding your breath at the wrong time can be serious...It's worth emphasizing that the Valsalva maneuver is only for short-duration, high-exertion efforts. The same technique that provided a core of strength for your PR back squat can become a serious headache—literally—when you apply it to a run-of-the-mill bench press."

Here is the link: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/know-when-to-hold-it-how-to-breathe-while-lifting.html

 

That is decent information, though don't trust too much of what you read on bodybuilding.com. A lot of it is garbage. The author there though says... and rightly, that "An extended Valsalva maneuver like this can cause a dangerous spike in blood pressure, bursting blood vessels in your eyes and forehead, causing headaches and temporary vision disturbances." That would be a very unnatural way to utilize the valsalva maneuver though. Using it rightly is really a very natural phenomena. Imagine you are going to pick up a really heavy box. You bend over, take a breath, and hold it during the heaviest part of the lift, exhaling immediately upon standing up and then take another breath. That's it. It is simply the bodies way of protecting your spine. The valsalva isn't supposed to be that complicated. Nobody I ever met or knew ever thought it a good idea to do a lengthy set of exercise while holding your breath the entire time. You only hold it during the hardest portion of the lift, exhaling once the hardest work is done and taking a breath.

Though it can be used to similar good effect on the bench press, contrary to what the author said. Like I said, don't hold your breath during the entire set, just the hardest part of each rep, then take another breath during the brief rest between reps.

 

Vitolony, it sounds like you have a lot of experience in the gym, what is your experience on having an attack while weight lifting and/or cardio training? Has it happened to you? It has never happened to me, and I believe, perhaps incorrectly, that the physical demands makes it less likely that I will have an attack while exercising. I am keen to gain perspective on this because I frequently ride in remote areas and don't really have a protocol for this circumstance. I'm wondering how big a concern this should be.

In fact, I am interested in everyone's perspective on this, so please share.

 

At my strongest, I was a bit of an animal. Nothing to outrageous, but certainly very strong. I had a 525LB deadlift, a 425LB full squat and a 350LB bench, all totally raw and natural. I haven't been that strong in quite a while though. Over use injuries prevent me from even attempting to put up those kind of numbers again. My shoulders and back complain if I get too crazy. But, I still work out quite a bit. More home grown crossfit type stuff.

I've never had an attack while exercising, though I've heard of people who have. I haven't had a vertigo attack since April 7th. Prior to that, and since August of 2014, I was having on average 1 attack a week, sometimes more. 4-6 hours of spinning on average each time. During that period, one of my primary theories was that my general lack of health contributed to my disease. I was pretty heavy. 300LBS. The nausea and vomiting and my fear of eating (it seemed to me at the time that what I was eating was triggering attacks) lead to me loosing a lot of weight in a very short period of time. In 4-5 months, I lost about 80LBS. It was actually a very unhealthy way to loose weight, but I didn't have very good control of my life at the time. During this period however, I did work out very often. Seems somewhat contradictory. But at the time, it seemed like I should give my heart and my body a reason to maintain muscle mass, and not just for cosmetic reasons. I knew I was going to continue loosing weight way too fast and that would take a toll on my heart if I didn't try to give my heart a reason to keep beating. Thus, I worked out a good bit, especially on the days when I was able to keep decent amounts of food down. I pushed myself during those workouts. Hard. But I never had an attack. In fact, I usually felt better after a workout. Probably because of the endorphins released from working hard.

One thing I am relatively convinced of, is that circulation in the inner ear is critical for folks like us. That being the case, working out to the degree one of us can without triggering an attack, can only help. Increased circulatory health is a very good thing when dealing with such a small area of the body like the inner ear that might have circulatory and nutrient delivery problems due to inflammation. I actually wonder if that might be why someone has an attack from working out. Possibly a similar dynamic as when one starts anti-virals. They usually get worse before getting better. The herpes virus doesn't like the anti-virals and so fights back. The herpes virus doesn't like more immune cells invading it's nice dark, comfy spot in the inner ear, and so it fights back. I could be completely wrong, but if I were just starting to fight this, I would be working out regularly despite possible attacks in the hopes that better circulatory health could help me gain the upper hand.