Endolymphatic shunt surgery question: How are you doing after this procedure?

Brown states that about 75% of patients find initial relief, but this drops to 50% over 10 years. Thus, many patients are finding initial relief, but not continued relief.

Revision surgery is an option.

 

Pretty old data, though. Might be something newer.

Brown JS. A Ten Year Statistical Follow-up of 245 Consecutive Cases of Endolymphatic Shunt in Decompression with 328 Consecutive Cases of Labyrinthectomy. Laryngoscope, 93:1419-1424, 1983.

 

Here is some newer data. Apparently, this is not a very high percentage success rate surgery. They do not mention long-term results

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20431498

 

Timothy Hain says that it can easily get plugged up.

http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/menieres/menieres_placebo.htm

Apparently, it's not much better, if any, than a placebo.

 

I actually look at that as a high percentage success rate. The data in that report says the control of only vertigo by shunt surgery was 86% compared to the 71% by Gentamicin. What brought those numbers down on the combined was the fact that not many had hearing improvement.

These were basically the numbers my doctor discussed with me when I was making my decision about the surgery. My hearing was pretty bad in my left ear and it did not improve until about 6 months after the surgery which can not be directly attributed to the surgery itself. So if your main goal is to too take control of the vertigo then it is worth a shot in my opinion as long as you have been properly diagnosed with Meniere's and not something else like MAV.

Some of the failures could be attributed to being misdiagnosed, poor surgery, your body did not heal well after the surgery i.e., scar tissue, etc.

 

yanksgirl have you thought about a second opinion? your doctor sounds a bit arrogant to me, no offense. But from what you post that he says other research says otherwise.

 

He also points out research that says it's no better than a placebo surgery.

 

on Medscape it gives a lower percentage of vertigo control

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/2181237-overview#a5
Studies have demonstrated endolymphatic sac shunting to be effective in control of the vertigo in Meniere disease in 50%-75% of patients.[7, 8, 9, 10, 11] In fact, it appears that endolymphatic sac decompression is as effective as endolymphatic sac shunting for control of vertigo.[13, 14, 15]

but it lists risks and complications and one is dizziness
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/2181237-periprocedure
Potential risks and complications include bleeding, infection, CSF leak, dizziness, hearing loss (total or partial), facial paralysis, and failure to achieve improvement in the disabling vertigo. Risk of hearing loss has been estimated to be 1%-2% of endolymphatic sac cases.

 

Well every good thing must come to an end. After almost 7 years of relief with my shunt surgery from Meniere's symptoms it decided to come back today. Aural fullness, loss of hearing and of course god ole vertigo. It was a relative short attack compared to the ones I used to get, this one only lasted 4 hours. Still feeling woozy but most of the vertigo is gone thanks to my dear old friend Valium.

I have my annual check up with my dizzy Doc in Feb so we will see what he thinks is going on. I will see what he has up his sleeve and also see if we can try antivirals again. He let me do that before I had surgery but it did not work then. We'll see.

I will tell you this though I would do the shunt surgery again if I got another 7 years of total relief like I had the last seven. Definitely worth it to me.