Drop Attack and Specialist

Hi Mark,
Drop attacks are brutal. Unfortunately doctors know about as much about drop attacks as they do Menieres, very little.

What is confirmed with Menieres, is that your brain is getting faulty signals, which tells you stuff is moving when its not (vertigo, dizziness, drop attacks). I dealt with this for almost 8 years, trying every remedy I could to solve it but all failed.

I now live a life free of dizziness and vertigo. I eat and go as I please.

Please check out my post on this site, with the help of people on this site I found a solution and had my left labyrinth removed, I am so grateful it was done, BUT I wish I would of done 8 years earlier.
Hang in there!
Blake

 

I only had one, sitting at my office desk talking on the cellphone, got thrown from the chair into the filing cabinet to my right. The cellphone went flying, I got up and said to myself, what the f* just happened?
Spoke to my ENT a Menieres specialist and had a labyrintectomy 6 months later. Life is good.
Best of luck to you.
Kevin

 

Had my first drop attack yesterday while out on my evening walk with the wife. It was a complete and total smack down. Lasted less than a minute, all in. While on the ground, I said to her "This is a drop attack - it's over already. Give me a minute, I'll be fine."

After 18 years of struggling with Meniere's ...

I got up, dusted myself off, and we finished our walk.

Aside from the lingering affects of the Meniere's and the permanent hearing loss, I feel better now than I have in a while... So, not so much fun to get this new Nolan Ryan level fastball thrown at me all the sudden..

 

That's the one thing that gets to me every time never knowing when the next attack might be. I've been caught a couple of times and after the last one gave up driving. Such a debilitating disease.

 

I have had a few drop attacks and stopped driving for two years. I started driving again but it is always on my mind. One drop I suffered a compression fracture in my back. Dr Fife at Barrow Neurology in Phoenix AZ ran some tests and and came to the conclusion that it was a progression of MD.I would rather have the spins as awful as they are, instead of these drop attacks any day. I have MD for 30 plus years and I am 81 now. When you find a cure let me know!

 

I had one a month ago. I was on a hike on a long downhill with my neck in a forward position and I suddenly spun out and collapsed for a moment. I got a black eye and bruised ribs.

I think it had to do with my forward head position (I have a problem with tight neck muscles pulling my neck vertebrae out of alignment). I am working on keeping them stretched, and am on a short course of steroids right now. The steroids also help with my histamine overload. The two conditions seem to combine to give me the feeling of tiredness and fuzzy brain, which I had been feeling for about a month prior, and which I believe were a warning before the drop attack.

 

I’ve had a few and they are indeed brutal. The worst one was when I was driving.

I'm pretty sure my Meniere’s was caused by multiple ear infections and head injuries as a kid (I had horses and had some bad accidents). It became really active when I lived in a house with black mold.

I’ve been in remission for over ten years and am pretty sure I’m in burnout - lost all hearing in my left ear and rarely have full-blown spins any more. I still get roaring and fullness in my bad ear and feel “Offish,” sometimes, like today.

Sending heartfelt sympathy and hugs to y’all. This disease sucks.

 

Drop attacks, oh the joy. I am the self professed king of drop attacks. lol Too much motion around me, or myself moving around too much. When I am out around a lot of people, say at Walmart a restaurant or an airport, and I am guaranteed to fall. I fall frequently enough that I have learned to be aware of things around me, what I can catch myself with or what I need to dodge on my way down.

 

I had my first major attack on May 11, 2002, but I suspect I had been suffering from Menieres for years before that, just at a lower level. That day I lost my hearing in my left ear, most of the hearing in my right, got severe tinnitus and was so dizzy I could not get out of bed without going down. I was mostly bedridden for a year before getting a labyrinthectomy in my left ear and a cochlear implant.

My symptoms surged for a number of years, and then kind of stabilized. in December, 2014, Dr. Jennifer Derebery of the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles (sadly retired now) said I had reached burnout. I seemed better for a couple of years, even traveled a bit in 2026 with no ill effects until the very end of the year. It has been a decline since then again, worsened in part by multiple serious surgeries unrelated to Menieres.

I am posting on this thread because this year I went through three rounds of steroid injections into my right eardrum. They seemed to help for the first six months, but when i did the second round, after the third injection everything went wrong. My hearing lessened by half and became horribly distorted, my tinnitus doubled, and my dizziness and fatigue were constant. I did a final round of three injections, but this past several days I have had three major drop attacks, one leading me to sit on the floor for a good five minutes before I could manage to get up and into my wheelchair.

I have reached the point where whenever I stand or walk I feel like I am on top of a pole going every which way, which happens to be the mainmast of a ship pitching about in storm waters. Valium helps, but mostly I have to sit or sleep. My mental processes, always acute and the basis of my entire professional life, are getting confused and unreliable. While I am again almost entirely a recluse, save for doctor visits and the rare times I choose to risk going to church, I am still sufficiently functional to be of value to my wife and our grandson. But not to myself. I will keep fighting as long as I can, but honestly, I will be glad when it is done. Menieres destroyed the last third of my life, and I am just worn out.

This forum has always been a great information source, and I will keep looking to see if any new treatments are mentioned. They will likely be noted here before anywhere else unless one is involved in a trial. My thanks to all of you who post. No one who does not have our ailment can know how bad it can be, especially since we look so "normal". Our hell is inside and invisible, and mostly just an annoyance to those around us or with whom we have to deal. That is another of its curses, of course. Enough for now.

 

Tumarkin's Otolithic Crisis
perhaps a search would help although physicians don't really know much more than we do.

 

I've had this beastly disease for 5 years now, and as I'm 84 life is not getting any easier. I follow the rules and stay hydrated, low sodium, plenty of sleep. Take my dosage of Betahistine 2x24mg daily and exercise as much as I can. I've realized it is what it is, we have to adapt to it day by day. As I no longer drive; walking, even with my walker is getting difficult, I do numerous online exercises to strengthen my legs as I'm as wobbly as a drunken sailor.
Keep your chin up and stay positive, adapt daily to your needs and enjoy nature.

 

Hi,
Sorry you're having this experience. It sucks.
I started having drop attacks 10 yrs ago, and ended up getting (over 5 yrs) 3 gentamicin injections. I think they worked A LOT. I still have episodes of vertigo, tinnitus, hearing loss, but nothing like the drop attacks I was having that left me hopeless and unable to function.