LT;DR (Lessons learned)
- You are the most responsible for the outcome
- Never give up, there is always hope
- Relationships stand your keystone
Meniere’s disease creates an excess of fluids in your inner ear, provoking you what is known by Meniere’s symptoms, which include hearing loss, vertigo, dizziness, vomiting, tinnitus, brain fog, and more. These symptoms appear progressively and, unfortunately, cannot be reverted later unless treated quickly.
My first attack happened 8 years ago. By then, each attack occurred once a year, but this year, I had many attacks, many times. The week before I wrote this article, I had 3 vertigo attacks. In each episode, I vomited and had to rest in bed for hours. I had visited doctors from different countries, osteopaths, massagists, etc. I read everything I could. But my situation was getting worse.
Or I was able to find something, or my next step could be asking for disability benefits (you become unable to work).
These are all the insights I learned and tested in parallel:
- Medicines. I took daily Betahistine, Adenosine, Mecobalamin, SutominA, and Isosorubido, prescribed by my doctor. These helped me avoid worsening in previous situations, at least temporarily.
- Diet. Doctors generally recommend a low-sodium diet and drinking a lot of water, helping with the fluid regulations (many believe Menieres is related to gluten or insulin issues), so I was careful.
- Stress. Doctors also recommend a relaxed life. I appreciate a lot the help from my company to take enough days to recover from my attacks.
- John of Ohio. This guy prepared a fantastic list of vitamins (no prescription). Many people were relieved by them. I took L-lysine and Ginkgo Biloba tea without significant effects.
- Auto-Immune system. I read much about Aciclovir or valacyclovir, but my doctor was not an enthusiast. As someone who suffered from Epstein-Bar in the past, I thought it was my problem.
- Blood circulation. I started going to the gym some months ago, which I reduced to only cardio as I was unsure if it had a positive or negative impact.
- Whitepapers. Little by little, I could understand more about how your body works and how to mitigate its symptoms (e.g., weather and pressure affect a lot).
- Community. The people participating in the forums (e.g., Facebook) are lovely and helpful. It helped me to understand what I could expect in the future. There are considerable tough cases.
- AI. I had the idea to aggregate all insights to evaluate what works or not, but it already existed (stuffthatworks.health). Unfortunately, there is no clear consensus about why this happens yet.
- Therapy. The pressure created by the symptoms requires a lot of help and compassion. That’s why there are many specialists in chronic disease, including Menieres. Family and friends are essential, but another point of view to understand your condition helps.
- Hearing Aids. I researched about and asked friends, but my condition was so unstable that I postponed it.
- More and more. There are vestibular exercises for recovering balance after surgery (the last step as you might lose all your hearing), electro technics to recover hearing, or fake stuff in Aliexpress like headphones with lasers of 650nm of penetration.
Luckily, the same week as the 3 attacks, I found another possibility. The article describes how the connection between your head and your first vertebra can cause Meniere’s. I quickly searched for an upper cervical chiropractor and contacted a few. The following week, he healed me.
I haven’t recovered from my hearing loss, and I still have tinnitus randomly, but my brain is working again. I feel more relaxed after sleeping fewer hours, remember better, hear more clearly the words, and even breathe easier. I was so surprised at what it meant to be healthy being unhealthy for so long.
I’m looking forward to the next revision with the chiropractic (I read that I might require one re-adjustment for each year affected). Now, I suggest that everybody discard this vector if suffering head issues. What a pity I didn’t know before, but what a miracle I learned before even longer.