Hmmmm, 1. my hearing got better last week, I really watched my coffee and was only drinking about 1/4 cup, I got relaxed about it, drank a whole cup now and then, 2 cups yesterday morning. The tinnitus came back with a roar, the hearing went very low 2. I stopped the lemonbioflavonoid because I am going to have allergy testing done this week and I didn't know if it contained vitamin C. 3. stress: cleaned out some of my old office things getting ready to move to a different department, then went over to new place I will work and picked up schedule will have a new computer system to learn and will be on my feet a lot 12 hours a day working in long term care facility as RN, but will work only 2 days a week. 4. a cold front moved in, went from 100 degrees yesterday to 54 degrees during the night. 5. I got some slight vertigo during the night and this am, haven't had any of that for at least a week. 6. I became very tired in the afternoon, had to lay down, went to bed early. I am going to start the lemonbioflavonoid again and forget the coffee and see what happens.I still have to work 2 days this week before driving 280 miles to have the allergy testing done. I did take an ativan under my tongue last night, am supposed to not take that either before testing.
I was a caffeine addict before Menieres struck. Now it is a huge trigger. I have two mugs of weak coffee a day. That's it. At my peak, I was downing 23 cups a day. Caffeine is definitely a huge trigger for me. But I have gotten to burnout in vertigo, meaning I have lost all of my vestibular function in both ears, so the only thing the caffeine affects is tinnitus, as it does for you. Everything is a tradeoff. For we with Menieres, the tradeoffs are unique to each of us. Unfortunately for me, the best "medicine" is booze. Fortunately, I appear to have the "alcohol gene." I can drink vast quantities of the stuff with no ill effects. I have blood work every three months, and my liver, kidney, cholesterol and BP are good to excellent. Go figure. I am on my second bottle of Cabernet tonight as I type this. But the bottom line for all of us is, listen to what your symptoms are telling you. If they say, less salt, then do it. If they say, less caffeine, likewise. If they say, stop the booze, or up the booze, then pay attention. Your life will be better for it if you do.
I am addicted to Diet Mt. Dew and Diet Dr. Pepper. Its right up there with my addiction to beautiful women but a whole lot cheaper and a lot easier to explain to my wife when she sees the credit card bill.
I often wonder what effect the caffeine and aspartame does have on my ears though, my philosophy, life's too short to worry about though.
I eliminated caffeine (Diet Coke) for the first 2 years. Cold turkey, religiously. Didn't make a difference at all for me. I now drink Diet Coke again and there is no connection between good or bad ear days, vertigo, etc for me.
I was staying in a hotel a few weeks ago, when ordering food decided to have the soup to start with. Now I don't eat processed food at all, everything is cooked from scratch so my diet is naturally low in salt. Had the soup, thought 'tasty but quite salty' didn't think anything of it. Not until I woke up at 3am with that horrible fullness feeling in my ear and loud, loud tinnitus! Every day is a school day...that day I learned to avoid soup from restaurants ;D
I still could not believe it was coffee, so I had 1 whole cup on Monday, ate some salted almonds, know better, got dizzy in evening to the point of having to take an ativan again, today NO COFFEE, NO ALMONDS, I have to work! But anyway the vertigo is gone this morning, yaaaaa! But also had a lot of stress yesterday and weather changes big time.
Stress is a MAJOR trigger for me. Also not enough sleep. Crazy loud places for a longer period of time. Weather seems to be a factor too - even though all the "experts" discount that as a role.
Weather is def a factor , I had 2 weeks Of no fullness. The first damp day big time Fullness. I had one doc explain to me That mm is inflamation not tooich fluid , when I asked why then when I eat too much Salt I get fullness ? He explained that salt Makes your blood thicker as does sugar So your body naturally pulls fluid from Your cells to thin out your blood, fluid From cells in your ears as well. Made sense To me. I have also found diuretics to not make A difference.
Weather is also def a factor for me ( as the last 3 days have been no fun), also too much salt, stress and not enough sleep. Guaranteed that any of those or a combo is going to result in a vertigo episode.
Lisa, I liked the explanation your doctor gave, the diuretics did not work for me either, but I took them since 2011 until July of 2015 they caused my sodium level to drop too low and I ended up in hospital for two days to get sodium put back into my body slowly, the internist told me if he did it too fast it could cause seizures, I do take an anti-seizure medicine since having a benign brain tumor removed in 2006. Anyway thanks for posting!
Linda the diuretics can be dangerous The first ent I went to put me on a big dose Increased it when there were no results, I Reduced it myself to 1/2 a pill at night It makes me dizzy and my potassium and Sodium was dropping too low as well. I think Vicky posted a thread a while Ago showing new evidence that diuretics Do not help mm.
Thanks Lisa, my potassium would have dropped too, but I either ate a whole banana every day, or took 2 tabs of over the counter potassium tablets. I was really watching my sodium intake and trying to keep it low when I experienced the low sodium drop, now I still watch the sodium but I don't take the diuretic.
Two of my biggest triggers are caffeine and alcohol, and while it was not an issue to give up alcohol, the caffeine was another matter. Coffee is something I drink all day, and having spent 10 years driving long-haul, I couldn't have been more addicted. Asked the wife to s l o w l y start introducing decaf into my coffee, and 2 weeks later she advised me that I was now drinking 100% decaf. Did have a couple headaches, but no big issue. Now I drink Decaf all day.. 8) The other two biggest triggers? Weather changes and stress.
I don't drink coffee, never did, but I have a question for the coffee drinkers here, decaf does have caffeine but ofc a small amount. Does changing from regular coffee to decaf eliminate the symptoms that the caffeinated coffee caused?
I stopped coffee cold turkey. I'll drink decaf now but I don't crave it first thing in the morning like I used to. IF I have caffeinated coffe now my heart races and I get all jittery. It does take awhile to get used to.
I don't know if decaf eliminates what caffeine does, I only know that decaf coffee is not supposed to be good for the body, and health wise it is better to have regular coffee, I have been drinking about 6 oz of coffee and I seem to be handling it okay, the day that I had a horrible vertigo attack, I hadn't had coffee for two days.