I just found this good article on the internet linking Meniere's with impaired carbohydrate metabolism-- https://www.tinnitusjournal.com/art...nd-their-correlations-in-menieres-disease.pdf These findings of a link makes sense to me because I have seen significant improvement myself, recently, though a dietary change--i.e., eating like a diabetic-- and especially, I have seen a general decrease in my bodily inflammation. The ear symptoms (fullness, loss of hearing) remain as the damage there may be permanent, but the vertigo has been gone for 3 months. A dietary change may be a good course of action for others to try.....
Thank you Janie - I've always been a believer in dietary help for MD. However, it's not a cure-all unfortunately - I just came off a really bad vertigo full blown attack - first in a couple of years, despite a careful diet.
Then it would be worth a try to find out if your cervical spine is misaligned. Cervical misalignment from inflammation of the neck muscles was giving me sudden attacks of vertigo...since I have been on a low-inflammation diet I have not had tight neck muscles and the adjustments my chiropractor had been giving me every few weeks now seem to be holding.
+1 Keto-like diet (lowering carbs intake) is one of the few things that helped me as well a little re-vertigo so far, along with JOH / natural antivirals and lowering homocysteine (B9+B12+B6). @JanieJiffy what did you actually change in your diet? Just cut the carbs?
Thank you JanieJiffy for your input. Interesting - as far as I understand. Medical science brings me to my English language limits. I am not shure if the condition described is kind of the opposite of Diabetes??? Hyper- insulin- emia means too much insulin in the blood. As a Diabetic I have au contraire not enough Insulin and have to supplement it. A diet considered generally healthy is recommended in Germany for MD, which can't be wrong for anyone. Low in sugar and salt, no processed food, no sodas, preservatives, colours ....rich in fibres, minerals and vitamins.... The article is from 2005 and I do not exactly know what was considered the reason of MD then. Obviously they wanted to find a correlation of hyperinsulinemia and MD. (Right?) I come from a Diabetes Dynasty and I am the only MD patient in my family. I never was happy with Metformin, disturbing my digestion/metabolism and I quit taking it two years ago. Feeling much better since then. I also think there is a correlation of inflammation in my spine/neck and my vertigo attacks. When I had to take loads of IBU after my accidents - no problems. Wishing you a very healthy and happy new year, Lilja
Re. diet, I have been eating far more vegetables (even at breakfast--and I don't like vegetables!), with no refined sugar, no dairy, and I've cut way back on simple, quickly-digested carbs. I used to snack on tortilla chips and popcorn, and now I know I can't do that because I have to keep my blood sugar as consistent as possible throughout the day. A better snack is a celery stick and hummus. The article link I sent in my original post says blood sugar spikes will upset the chemical balance in the inner ear and apparently cause the damage that leads to MD in some people. I am also aware of the "heal your gut" dietary principles (see the book, The Microbiome Solution, by a gastroenterologist) and am including more fermented foods. AllI know is that within 3 days of improving my diet I felt a marked drop in both BRAIN and soft-tissue body inflammation, and this inflammation has continued to improve now over 3 months. When I get off my bike now, I don't feel like my brain has been attacked. My brain inflammation used to be so bad that after doing aerobic exercise (a 20-minute bike ride on hills) I had to go lie down on my back to calm down the impending dizziness. Biting down on crunchy food with my neck in a forward position had, in the past, actually set off a vertigo attack. I still deal with neurological sensitivity to bright lights and sounds, and wear migraine glasses to watch TV. In the past I tried the vestibular migraine diet and it helped somewhat, but not enough. I think it was partly because I had failed to include consideration of blood sugar spikes. Also when I go to the chiropractor now he finds no misalignment which I believe is because my neck muscles are less tight. In the past I sometimes had awful misalignment.
I am definitely getting very interested in this path. "The merging relationship of hyperinsulinemia with id- iopathic neurootology-mainly tinnitus, vertigo, and hearing loss-has been established." https://www.tinnitusjournal.com/art...nd-their-correlations-in-menieres-disease.pdf
If only my ENT, 5 years ago, had told me I should have controlled my insulin spikes, I would probably have less hearing damage now! All he did was put me on a diuretic. which did nothing to help. About 30 years ago I was having inflammatory flareups and a doctor told me, after a glucose tolerance test, that I was getting insulin spikes and should stop eating sugar. That was long before the Meniere's. Of course I ignored him as soon as the inflammatory flareups calmed down. I wish I had known better and taken him seriously back then. If I had known it would cause Meniere's I would have changed my diet.
Hi JanieJiffy, how do you know about your insuline spikes? Interesting! I am a Diabetic quite well controlled, but I can see only glucose spikes. And you only get glucose spikes If you are a Diabetic. You do not have enough insuline as a Diabetic, that is why you get glucose spikes. Hyperinsulinemia seems to be a different illness.
You are right, the illness associated with Meniere's is hyperinsulimia-- having insulin in your bloodstream that your tissues aren't responding to, because of your having acquired insulin resistance. The research study I am looking at right this moment (I am looking at a printout, I can find the link if needed) found 72% of Meniere's patients had hyperinsulimia. The authors said we should be tested with a 5-hr. (i.e., longer than usual) glucose and insulin curve test to look for hyperinsulimia, "the metabolic change most often found in the pathogenesis of cochlea-vestibular disorders." So it seems likely that if many of us had known we had insulin resistance earlier, and done something about it, we might not have developed MD over the years. I did not know about my insulin spikes until the doctor told me after giving me a 3-hour glucose tolerance test . He gave me the test because of my inflammatory episodes, as he suspected they were associated with carbohydrate metabolism problems. Any thoughts?