I think I'm in the middle of a cluster

Hi All,

I received a meniere's diagnosis from my primary care doc that is familiar with the diseasea couple weeks ago. I've since gone to see the ENT and he really didn't have all that much to say other than lets see the MRI and continue from there. Started doing maxide and the low salt thing.

In the past week I've had 4 episodes, lucky for me... the duration of the violent vertigo averages about 10 minutes and then a day or two of dizziness and being off balance and I just feel wrecked and incredibly nauseous. I'm taking klonopin and zofran and meclizine as needed with mixed results. I am fullly aware that a 10 minute vertigo session sounds great to some and I'm thankful mine are that brief but at times I think that just because my eyes aren't twitching that I'm not still "in" an episode with the dizziness and nausea and disequilibrium.

One of the things the ENT asked me was if my hearing changes during the attack. I really didn't have a good answer for him because I'm so overcome with just riding out the spinning that I don't pay much attention to it. I guess my hearing may fluctuate a bit but with the crazy loud tinnitus and the heat of the moment I really can't tell.

I'm ok with the ENT not having answers at this point as I've done enough research and reading here that this is a diagnosis by exclusion and he wants to be right. I did get my MRI and looked at the images and self-diagnosed that YEP, I indeed have a brain. That's the extent of my diagnosis. I'm due to go see him again on Friday to go over the results.

My biggest issue with all this is the spike in anxiety and work. I'm military and luckily have a good boss that is letting me work from home or as needed. I'm tired of being told to stop apologizing for this. It's just difficult that this "thing" has completely taken my life in a direction I wasn't expecting nor intended. It's HARD not to try and go to work and even harder to be told to just go home because with my position, it's better I'm not there than be there at 30%. Of course, as with most things.. the politics involved with military medicine and everyone fighting over their swim lanes I'm stuck in the middle. One guy thinks I should be moved here... another doc says I'm fine and just go back to work (but oh by the way don't drive). It's all quite frustrating. I'm like okay, then why don't I go drive and run off the road and THEN you can tell me I'm ok! Grr...

I guess I just wanted to vent a bit. I know I have it good in the grand scheme of things. It's just tough and for the past 17 years I've been on a laser beam course, my body has never failed me... and this has totally thrown that out the window! I've never had attacks like this so close together.. typically I have a week or two between issues. The weather has changed quite a bit here in the past week and I wonder if that has something to do with it? I dunno.. grasping at straws here. I know there's no answer.

Apologies for the pity party. I'll just keep trudging along.

I hope everyone has a great evening!
-Caseyh46