I have psoted this study before but now its on pubmed which is awesome http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25940200 Recovery of Hearing in Meniere's Disease after Antiviral Treatment. Gacek RR1. Author information 1Dept. of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 55 Lake Ave, North Worcester, MA. Electronic address: [email protected]. Abstract OBJECTIVE: Determine the outcome of hearing in Meniere's Disease (MD) after antiviral treatment. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective study. SETTING: University Hospital. METHODS: Thirty one new patients with a diagnosis of MD were treated with antiviral drugs during 2012. Acyclovir or valacyclovir was used depending on insurance coverage and cost. A standard dose of 800mg (acyclovir) or 1g (valacyclovir) 3 times a day for 3weeks was used. The dose was decreased to twice daily for three weeks, and finally once daily for a year or longer. Hearing test including pure tone average (PTA) and speech discrimination (SD) was performed prior to treatment and 1-2 months, 6months and 1year after the initiation of treatment. Effect on dizziness was recorded at each evaluation, hearing was judged to be improved if PTA was lowered by at least 15db and/or an increase in SD of 20% or greater. RESULTS: Hearing was improved in twelve and not improved in nineteen patients. Complete control of vertigo was achieved in those patients with improved hearing. The nineteen patients with no improvement in hearing were divided into 2 groups based on the level of hearing at diagnosis. Nine patients presenting with a PTA of 50db and SD of 50% or better experienced good control of vertigo (6 out of 7; 2 with no follow-up). Ten patients with PTA of 60db or more and SD below 50% exhibited poor control of vertigo with antivirals (3 out of 10). The duration of MD in the group with hearing improvement was shorter (2.4years) than the group with no improvement (5.5years). CONCLUSION: Significant hearing and balance control in patients with MD can be achieved with orally administered antiviral drugs. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Well, I already knew that!! I'm just wondering why the results for the two groups were so different. I think if they figure that out, they will hit on a cure for everyone. I haven't had an audio gram since I had perforations repaired but I know my hearing has been preserved. Along with the absence of vertigo and the quality of life, preserving my hearing was most important for me. Good Work Vicki!!
glad your hearing is improved that's great! Yup we knew it but its good it son pubmed so his peers can read it and maybe penetrate their stifled minds.
there is research going on to regrow hair cells to repair damaged inner ears. https://hearinglosscure.stanford.edu/stem-cell-therapy/ Stem Cell Therapy What if doctors could grow a new working inner ear from a person’s own skin cells? Or repair the damaged inner ear from within? Solving this profound mystery is the driving force behind stem cell research and the promise of tissue engineering in otolaryngology. While hearing aids and cochlear implants can provide good recovery of hearing function, the development of a biological method to repair the damaged cochlea has the potential to restore normal hearing without any type of prosthesis. One approach to restore hearing might be to surgically place stem cells within the cochlea in such a way that they would fuse with the remaining cochlear structures and develop and function as hair cells. Scientists believe this is a viable approach because, unlike most organs that are destroyed by disehttp://www.pinkwalrusmedia.com/pwm/info-center/stem-cell-therapy/ase, the inner ear remains structurally intact—only the hair cells are lost. By mimicking the steps involved in the formation of embryonic mouse ears, Stanford scientists have produced stem cells in the laboratory that look and act very much like hair cells, the sensory cells that normally reside in the inner ear. If they can generate hair cells in the millions, it could lead to significant scientific and clinical advances along the path to curing deafness in the future. A promising source of creating hair cells comes from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS)—adult cells, taken for example from a patient’s own skin that have been genetically reprogrammed to revert back to stem cells. This breakthrough process represents a major opportunity to eventually treat a patient with his or her own cells. Currently, our research team is working toward producing human hair cells for the first time in a culture dish. This work could lead, in the long run, to novel therapies based on cell transplantation. Equally exciting is an ongoing approach to use embryonic stem cell-based approaches tfor discovery of novel drugs that could be used for treatment for deafness. More about this exciting new direction can be found under the Molecular Therapy tab.
It seems like the study confirms that the earlier the dr starts the anti-virals (before the significant hearing loss) the more likely it is that hearing is restored and vertigo eliminated. But if the progression has gone too long and the negative impact to the ear too significant than the results were not as impactful. Yet "another" reason why it would be nice if more doctors would at least agree to try this with their patient! And better yet, offer out anti-virals as immediate first response like they offer out reducing sodium, eliminating caffeine, etc.. Vicki, THANK YOU for finding and sharing!
I agree nicmger this studies shows how important it is for those with hearing loss caused by Meniere's to start antivirals as soon as possible, to control vertigo and restore their hearing.
I would like to know what the PTA and SD of the 12 who experience hearing improvement where at the onset.
the full article would have that I assume but its by purchase only. http://www.amjoto.com/article/S0196-0709(14)00072-6/abstract
Have been on Acyclovir 400mg 3Xdaily for 6 months, along with complete John O regimen, have had meniere's for a decade, hearing showed slight improvement until the last month, has worsened tremendously, and just had my first full blown attack in 5 months. staying on all meds, headed back to ENT for hearing help. Open to any thoughts, suggestions. Thanks!
increase your dose for a week or two or so then try decreases again. Also see if you can get valcyclovir it seems to suppress the HSV better for some people.
So the treatment plan was the same for everyone? Ive read that some people need to take it 3x a day for a few months before seeing results. I wonder if for the people that were not responding within the first 3 weeks, if he kept them on 3x a day for longer.
I believe Dr Gacek's protocol is a guideline, everyone is different and different time frames may apply. For some it may take only 3 weeks for others months. But you make a good point about staying on it as long as you need to.
Thank you Vicki, now I can print this out and take to my ent. Hopefully she will prescribe for me now!
I am new to the group but extremely pleased to see that my own Doc has been active on the research end too. Thanks for posting this
But surely this means very little if you don't have a control group? The sample size is very small too. I do believe in antivirals and take them myself, but surely if these results are interesting then what is needed now is a full scale trial with control.
This is an older thread, and originally the info was found and shared by a member that doesn't participate here any longer. Reality (in my opinion) is that there is not significant money "in it" for any full clinical trials...typically those are setup because someone believes they have found the next miracle drug that they can change $10k/mo for. Plus since there is no determined cause for Menieres, and it is very sporadic in how it attacks and come/goes, doubt that any trial big/small would ever ultimately receive agreement that it fixed the issue. I believe that even if the study was positive, most doctors would believe it was either placebo or "just because" Meniere's had went dormant. My opinion. My reality...I don't personally care whether or not any one cares for major clinical trials. Here, suffers have experienced the relief. That is enough for me - I place a higher value on the experience of people like me versus a study that supposedly proves one thing or another.
This is the idea though of a "double blind" trial in which you have half the group taking the actual medication, and the other half taking a placebo, but nobody knows which group is which, doctors or patients. If you have a suitably large sample group and the group that was taking the medication show a significantly higher number of those that find relief to those that were not then nobody can dispute the findings. This I believe is one of the issues with the only study that ever showed CERC to be of benefit, was that it was not a "double blind" or even a blind trial, it was one of these "take these pills and tell me if you feel any better" type trials and there was no control group. I saw a statistic once that 0.2% of people have meniere's but 2% of people think or thought they had it. That means that if you give everyone who gets diagnosed with meniere's a dehydrated water tablet, then most will get better, but it won't be because of the tablet. I also take the anti-virals and the John of Ohio regime too and really do believe they help. I'm also too scared to actually try coming off them as I don't want to go back to how I was before. But it's also true that just maybe, I was worse before because of other factors and was going to improve anyway. Given that I pay around 50 euros a month for Valtrex here in Spain, and there are something like 615,000 people in the USA with meniere's then I think there would be plenty money in it for a full trial. Or, it's just possible they have commissioned trials but can't get the results they wanted.
Once again, there is virtually no chance that any proper, publishable, statistically-valid double-blind research of antiherpetics against Meniere's will ever be conducted. Far too expensive. These sorts of studies cost many millions of dollars. No one with such money --- drug companies, or the government --- is going to fork over such funds. The results of such a study, no matter what they would be, simply don't justify the expenditure. Yes, big double-blind studies are done to test new, proposed, drugs --- BUT ONLY for drugs drugs with a giant potential, continuing monetary return. That's the problem. No drug company can possibly recover any reserach funds in the testing of any new or old Meniere's drug. If a big many-million dollar double-blind study proved (as the present anedcotal evidence strongly supports) that prescribed antiherpetics did give remarkable, high-percentage relief, the increased antiherpetic drugs the company would sell would be fractional, compared to current sales for cold sore applications, etc. Meniere's is a rather uncommon disease . Same for any new, proposed drug (of which I know of none). Just too few sales of such a drug to the relatively infrequent Meniere's patients to cover the double-blind research project. Clearly, if the finances of a double-blind trial of antiherpetics would sufficiently increase sales, drug companies would be right on it. The harsh reality is this. Drug companies are not in the business of curing or treating diseases; rather, they solely try to make continuing streams of cash, to go to employees and shareholders. Meniere's doesn't fit any of that. Too few of us, and no continuing, profit-generating "treatments." --John of Ohio