Difference between EH & Menieres

If i remmber correctly, I believe endolymphatic hydrops means the disease is in the part of the inner ear which affects balance. Cochlear hydrops means the disease is in the cochlear, the hearing part of thr inner ear. Each has its own set of symptoms mainly balance or mainly bearing. Menieres is the whole enchilada as my dr called it, affecting both parts of the inner ear and having both hearing and balance symptoms. Either EH or CH can progress to Menieres. But I often see EH equated to Menieres so maybe I am wrong. Practically speaking, i think it is the same thing just in very slightly different location, one often progressing to another.

 

Mine started out as EH but is now considered Meniere’s. I would seriously try to do everything you could to take good care of yourself - keep stress at bay, good nutrition, sleep, supplements like JOH and/or antivirals, betahistine if warranted. Those things could really help!

 

I think it is like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It manifests itself in slightly different ways from person to person.

Is your doctor an inner ear specialist ‘neurotologist’? Did your doctor do a full workup, mri etc? If not go see someone who will. Then if it is diagnosed as menieres or eh or ch, then do everything you can to stop it before it progresses because it likely will. Try antivirals etc. But first make sure other causes are ruled out.

 

I agree with this. Mine started as ch, was moving across to balance issues was thankfully stopped and revered by antivirals.

 

As June said, it can be different for each person. For example, I have never really experienced fullness in my ear, at least how other people have described it. To simplify it, from a symptom perspective EH and Meniere's are basically the same except Meniere's includes vertigo. Which symptoms you have and how severe they are can vary from person to person.

 

Yes, that is probably the hallmark of ch.

 

Yes, in theory, but there is a lot of overlap in real life. My dr told me that the chance of my ch progressing to classic menieres was 20%. At the same time he told m e to do my best to avoid episodes of ch because each episode decreased elasticity and increased liklihood of progression to menieres. In reality, in my case, i was beginning to have episodes of strange balance things, tilting, etc and sound induced nausea. I think witout the antivirals i would have progressed to vertigo over time. The distortion and tinnitus were bad enough.

 

Start anywhere. Just dont give up. It could be a perfect storm of all of the above assaulting the immune system. Throw in allergies too.

 

I have CH. The only difference between what I have and full blown Meniers is vertigo. I have never had vertigo, and I hope I never do, but the first time I spin, it will be reclassified as MM. I have all the other symptoms though including hearing loss, tinnitus, and ocaasional aural fullness. I have had dizziness in the past too, but not since starting antivirals. Also, this disease is a disease of the endolymph, and as such infects the endolymphatic sac. This is the hearing fluid of the inner ear, not to be confused with the paralymph, which is the balance fluid of the inner ear. When pressure of the endolymph, because of viral activity, we think, increases and ruptures the Reisners’s Membrane, the two fluids mix and this is usually when the worst things happen since the fluids are toxic to the opposite sides of the membrane. This is when the sensory suffers the worst damage, both hearing and balance. This is when most people will suffer vertigo and hearing loss. Every time this process happens the damage gets worse and eventually one will suffer profound hearing loss, loss of balance, chronic imbalance, and regular bouts of vertigo. The trick, at least my belief, is to not allow this to happen by combatting it with antivirals early because once the inner sensory gets damaged, there’s generally no way to reverse the damage. This disease must be aggressively treated as early as possible for the best results. Never allow this to progress to full blown MM!! According to research 90% of these cases are viral and the other 10% are autoimmune. Either way, it can be treated either with antivirals first, and if the patient doesn’t respond to the antivirals then steroids should usually suppress. By the way, I’m not a doctor, but have done a lot of reading and research on this topic and I am only repeating information we’ve discussed on these boards for quite some time now, but I have noticed many of the old timers have since moved on. So there ya go. Hope this helps!!

 

This is one of the best posts I've seen on this group. Thank you for posting.

You may not be a doctor but you are spot on. I had CH for the first 7 years of my battle. I was misdiagnosed by the "top" Neuro in NYC with MM in 2008. Gave me the old low salt and say your prayers approach.

It was not until I got the Hand Foot and Mouth Virus in 2015 that things got out of control. I had my first violent vertigo attack. First of dozens. My CH went from a nuisance to live changing for not just me but my family as well.

It took me a while but I started to think that maybe this was viral. I asked the docs and they laughed. I did not find this site until Nov 2017. I have been on 3 pills a day of antivirals ever since. I can only imagine what that would have done if I had started that 10 years ago. They have helped but I was way too far along to get the results of some of the people who started it early on. I believe if you get on top of it while is still CH you can really slow it down.

I now have profound hearing loss and chronic imbalance at 39. The moral of the story is...Everyone should aggressively treat this with antivirals as early as possible. It will NOT work for everyone. But it is worth the shot and you have nothing to lose. Doing nothing for 10 years ensures profound hearing loss and balance issues.

 

Whose research? Dr. Gacek's?

 

Zotgen....I’m out of town on a family vacation and do not have access to my source material, much of which is in print form at home. Tried to look up some of the research papers online but they appear to charge for journal articles that were once free. To answer your question though..Yes, the 90% figure came from one of the Gacek research journals. I will not be home until this weekend and will try and see if there are any links I can post for you to see it first hand.

Mario....I do have a link for you that discusses the antiviral dosages, but I recall there was a better one. Have to find it too and may have to go back to the printed version at home. What I will tell you however is that we all decided on here a long while ago that dosages contained in most of these journals are too low and Valacyclovir is a far superior drug to Acyclovir. . You should also know you will most likely need to be on 3000 MG of Valacylovir a day until you get results, and may take longer than the initial two weeks mentioned in the journal. Could be a longer or shorter time frame, but anything less, may not work. This is the number one reason why some people don’t get the relief they’re looking for as they aren’t on a high enough dosage for a long enough time frame. Dosages have to be high in order to penetrate the blood brain barrier. Once you start to get relief, try to back it down to 2000 MG a day and if after a period of time after that you continue to have relief, then try and back down to the 1000 mg a day, which can then become your maintenance dosage. Always use increments of 1000 MG because as Gacek suggests, any less thanthat will not penetrate the blood brain barrier. You will also need to get regular blood tests to make sure the high antiviral dosages are not interfering with liver and kidney functions. If you don’t get any relief after a few weeks to a month, consider a steroid treatment as it could be an autoimmune issue instead of viral, but since most cases are viral, you’re best to start there, especially since there are virtually no side effects with antivirals.

Here’s one more thing to consider...If a patient presented genital Herpes to a doctor , would that doctor recommend a low sodium diet and prescribe a diuretic?? Hell no!! So then why would they expect you to do that when presenting with an active Herpes infection of the inner ear? Their argument will be that they don’t know what causes MM, but to the contrary there’s plenty of data out there to suggest otherwise. My Neurologist, was skeptical when I originally presented him with data supporting a viral etiology for MM, but personally knew Gacek and had high respect for him. He then reluctantly agreed to try the antiviral approach. After my results and after presenting him with more studies he became a believer!! He now prescribes antivirals for all his MM patients and tells me he hasn’t taken a single patient to surgery since. Pretty remarkable!!

https://www.mm3admin.co.za/documents/docmanager/6e64f7e1-715e-4fd6-8315-424683839664/00056616.pdf


I’ll say this again, this disease must be treated aggressively as early as possible preferably with antivirals!! I’ll also point out that most people have had little success with low sodium diets and diuretics when trying to combat MM.