1. Get our daily digest email where we email the latest new topics from our Strictly Health forum to keep up with the latest developments! Click here to subscribe.

How quickly does too much salt/ food trigger affect you?

Discussion in 'Your Living Room' started by MaryR, Jul 30, 2019.

  1. MaryR

    MaryR New Member

    29
    5
    3
    Jul 25, 2019
    Hi friends,
    First of all, I want to thank everyone on this forum for sharing your stories. I'm new here and I've learned so much this week reading all the posts I can get my hands on. I still don't have a clear diagnosis.. ENT thinks I have Meniere's, Neurotologist thinks it's Vestibular Migraines, partly because I failed so spectacularly on low salt/ diuretic combo, which actually seemed to coincide with a significant increase in vertigo attacks. So my question is... how quickly do you pay the price after ingesting too much salt, caffeine, alcohol, or any other food trigger. What are your food triggers? Can salt/ food triggers cause an immediate vertigo response, or is it hours, days, weeks?? Is it cumulative, or can one bad day send you spinning? Also, does anyone track histamine levels in foods? I'm just feeling so lost, trying to find a consistent trigger for these seemingly random vertigo attacks.
    Thanks so much,
    Warmly, Mary
     
  2. Dario

    Dario Member

    56
    5
    8
    Apr 30, 2019
    Melbourne
    Hi Mary,

    I wish it were that easy to answer. I really think it is so different for each person. Since being diagnosed I have taken on the low salt diet and am on Betahistine every day. I suffered 3 bad vertigo attacks with each being about 6 months apart before I was diagnosed. I haven't had any attacks since February but I am not sure if it's the salt, the tablets or a mixture of both. I am never 100% (always a little wobbly) but this is completely manageable and I have learnt to live with it. It's the vertigo that I cannot bear as it just takes me out and I need to be on my bed at home. I drink alcohol all the time (I need one vice in life) but have gone down to 1 coffee per day. I have also tried to go a few weeks without alcohol but I was exactly the same so I figure that it doesn't make me unbalanced. I guess the moral of this story is you have to find out what works and what your triggers are. I have read a few things on this site where people have had a salty meal and then BANG - they have a vertigo attack the day after. Others report of going completely cold turkey with the salt and still have bad attacks. It's a bastard of a beast. I wish you all the luck in the World with this :)
     
    • Like Like x 1
  3. Tacio Domingos

    Tacio Domingos New Member

    11
    1
    3
    Jun 19, 2019
    Spain
    @MaryR, I agree with @Dario. You will need to figure out if salt is a trigger for you. And even if someone says salt is an immediate trigger for them, it does not mean that that applies to you (let alone the "immediate" part). I have had Meniere's disease for over 10 years and salt makes absolutely no difference for me. So the standard low-sodium advice does not apply to me. That said, alcohol does increase my tinnitus and pulsatile tinnitus. And a real shame that is as I do like my drinks! I can handle some alcohol these days if I have eaten enough prior to drinking. Definitely don't over do it anymore though...
     
  4. California Sun

    California Sun Active Member

    369
    71
    28
    May 23, 2019
    I have had Meniere's disease for almost 5 decades now. I have never noticed any correlation to severity of symptoms and anything I eat or drink. I tried to tell this to the last doctor I saw and he looked down his nose at me and insisted that "years of research proves that a low salt diet and avoiding caffeine does work." Well, maybe it does work for some but doesn't work for me.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  5. Dario

    Dario Member

    56
    5
    8
    Apr 30, 2019
    Melbourne
    Hi, so do you just eat and drink everything? Hoe does your MD work? Do you take anything?
     
  6. Onedayatatime

    Onedayatatime Active Member

    372
    74
    28
    Nov 22, 2016
    Loso helped me. I still try to stay between 1000-1500mg per day. Kiss restaurants goodbye. Most sit down restaurant meals exceed 1500mg.
     
  7. California Sun

    California Sun Active Member

    369
    71
    28
    May 23, 2019
    I mostly eat/drink what I want. I don't drink alcohol but I do drink coffee in the morning. I do follow a sugar-free low carb diet to maintain my weight and because I do overall generally feel better eating that way. I eat in restaurants and that doesn't have an effect on the MD one way or another. I don't use a lot of salt when I cook at home because I don't like food that is too salty.

    I am doing the B5/B6 right now and will continue that for a while longer. Still taking the diuretic I was prescribed last year but will probably stop once the Rx runs out. That seemed to make a difference for a very short time but then didn't any more.

    The only thing I have ever noticed in all these years that affects my symptoms is drastic changes in weather or barometric pressure, and stress.
     
  8. Mustang1

    Mustang1 Member

    37
    13
    8
    Jun 21, 2019
    Upstate NY
    I do try to keep a salt intake of around 1500mg as per Dr's orders, I believe this helps. Decaf coffee, ice tea and easy on the Chardonnay. :( Stress is my biggest trigger, a hectic day at the office can really give me problems on the spot.
     
  9. June-

    June- Well-Known Member

    1,788
    58
    48
    May 12, 2014
    I was told it is not just how much salt but try to keep is pretty even throughout the day.

    Eliminating caffeine may help whether it is menieres or migraine. You may want to read Heal Your Headache to get some ideas about diet that helps migraine. Many people have found that helpful. Also watch any food you may suspect you have an allergy to. Good luck, you will make progress on this i think. It can be frustrating in the mean time.

    Ps if you take a diuretic, be cautious about extremely low sodium diets. It can be overdone and cause problems. I know i did it.
     
  10. zotjen

    zotjen Member

    183
    8
    18
    May 12, 2014
    As per my doctor, if sodium is a trigger the effects of it should be fairly quick, definitely by the next day. I would think it's the same for other food triggers as well. While sodium doesn't seem to bother me, alcohol does increase my tinnitus rather fast.
     
  11. wendy

    wendy Member

    168
    19
    18
    May 18, 2019
    I think sodium definitely is a trigger for me. Some of my attacks occurred the day after I overdid sodium either at restaurants or eating someone else's cooking (restaurant food is the worst).
     
  12. Clare

    Clare Active Member

    387
    79
    28
    Mar 31, 2018
    I don't have vertigo now, being post-laby, but sodium seemed to correlate strongly with my attacks. I was very careful about sodium in my diet. Then a new pizza joint opened up in the neighborhood, and I figured that one slice to check it out couldn't harm anything, especially since I'd been stable for several months. The next day after my pizza-slice indulgence, I had a roaring vertigo attack which put me into a flare-up phase of many more attacks for a month or two.

    On another occasion I vacationed in Mexico for a week with my daughter -- sort of a last fling as she fledged the nest. We didn't speak Spanish well enough to discuss food preparation with servers, and just went with the flow trying to order fresh ingredient items where possible. But halfway through the week I started spinning and became unable to explore as wished. We'd planned for this possibility and booked lodging that wasn't unpleasant to hang out in for the second half of the trip. It was so much nicer to spin on a recliner with beach sand under my feet than if I'd sheltered in my bedroom at home. So glad I went on that trip, and so glad I got the laby a year later.
     
    • Winner Winner x 1
  13. Nathan

    Nathan Well-Known Member

    1,086
    123
    63
    May 12, 2014
    Subsurface ocean, Europa
    Welcome to the forum, MaryR *smiles

    Within 24 hours, the pursuing half-life a near carbon copy.

    Likewise, & like you I also keep my sodium intake low.

    A number of well-versed & intelligent ex-members have suggested that it's not so much low sodium intake that's important, but rather maintaining consistent moderate intake levels. Which is to say avoiding spikes in sodium consumption regardless of intake levels within the moderate & healthy zone of the intake spectrum.

    I've yet to undertake this experiment myself.

    That said, it may be easier to maintain consistent intake levels if focusing on low intake, much the same way it is easier to avoid g-forces while driving a car with a top speed of 3 km/h—it's not that g-forces can't be avoided at higher speeds, however higher speeds generate greater margins of potential forces acting on an object.

    Individuals devoid of inner ear disorders experience this basic dynamic also, as a very low sodium diet will induce fluid retention when the salty pizza, or the salty pizza slice is consumed, Ménière's or no. Caeteris paribus & other health related issues aside, fluid retention fails to occur in individuals who consume the salty pizza slice if they consistently consume moderate levels of sodium.

    Mutatis mutandis water intake, & this is an experiment I've conducted myself. If water intake varies dramatically from day to day, or week to week, the body in return attempts to either retain or release water more aggressively than it otherwise would, leading to, in those suffering from Ménière's—though subject to many variables & factors such as hight, weight, gender, altitude, season—spikes in aural fullness, or in my case, aural fullness, tinnitus, & hyperacusis.

    Years ago my sister & mother vacationed for, what I assume to be similar, if not related reasons. Only rather than Mexico, my sister deemed the trendiest & most stimulating areas of Queensland, Australia the presumed to be—& much to my mothers despair—mutually desired destination.

    Years following in time, after the hurrah-I’m-free-of-the-nest-&-forever-liberated-from-mother-whoo-hoo honeymoon phase came to an end, my sister insisted upon another holiday, only this time it would be a two week long, mind, body, & spirit detox spa purification retreat in Bali *chuckles

    Love this.
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Agree Agree x 1
  14. Striker

    Striker New Member

    2
    0
    1
    Oct 12, 2019
    This is the main thing. Typically I have seen 4-24 hours after a sodium spike some changes in inner ear pressure/noise. Other factors that affect me are caffeine ( I switched to Tea, its less caffeine), stress, the season. Typically it happens later rather than sooner ie the fluid buildup and lack of drainage to the point of triggering takes some time to get to. I did have a relapse where it burned itself out for 5 years or so and I went hog wild with salt and everything, and no issues, however now its back. The body is great at repairing itself and I guess tried to rebuild my crappy inner ear. Leastways that's how I look at it. Couple that with what the brain does to try correct the Vertigo ie adapt to make that changed signal the new norm. But if the signal keeps changing then, well you know what happens
     
  15. Jacqui

    Jacqui Member

    33
    16
    8
    Jan 21, 2019
    Athens, Greece
    I agree about that it seems better (for me anyway) to maintain a moderate sodium level than go super low. I initially went all out making my own bread, hurling out my precious asian sauces and suffering miserably at 1500mg a day. Then I slowly increased, with occasional dashes of this and that and careful meals in restaurants. I tend to buy salty things like capers, parmesan and proscuitto and chop them very finely and add only a wee amount to my dishes. So I am probably on about 2000- 4000 mg most days with very little sodium before mid afternoon. I think the low low amounts just set you up for a reaction if you 'accidentally' have a high salt meal. Better to take the middle road and enjoy your food.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1

Share This Page