I cured myself of Menieres

I'm happy that you've found relief!
How does one avoid Gluten? I've thought about trying a gluten free diet but what would you be able to eat? Heidi

 

...Go to this web site and you'll get lots of info on a gluten free diet. www.celiac.com
Rick

 

....I have a diagnoses of Meniere's because of al the standard symptoms. It started with the fullness in my left ear followed by a hearing loss in the low frequencies, and somewhere in there the tinnitus began. And then I started getting the vertigo attacks. I had the MRI done and other tests to rule out other possibilities and ended up with the diagnoses of Menieres.

....Now considering the fact that by controlling my triggers I have gone 5 years without a vertigo attack, I think it's entirely possible to have Meniere's without vertigo. What if for some reason, I had gone gluten free and followed the glycemic index before I had my first attack? I think right now there's a good chance I would have never experianced a vertigo attack.

...My personal opinion is that Snow was destined for the vertigo but may have prevented this by makng the dietary changes now. But I'm also not so naive to think that I will go forever without another vertgo attack. Looking at the triggers others have that I don't tells me I could develope another trigger very easily and get the vertigo again.
Rick

 

Rick ~ Were you able to get your hearing loss back? or did you not get that far to have hearing loss?

 

Nassman, my oto would not agree with you. "Cochlear hydrops" is also called atypical Meniere's, sometimes 'early Meniere's'. Many dr's believe it always becomes full blown Meniere's and others believe that only happens 20-50% of the time. But hydrops is present in both cases. Granted, without vertigo, life is a heck of a lot easier and the hydrops is at least for the time being isolated to the cochlea.

 

My question is this: Wouldn't there be other signs of allergy besides just the Meniere's Symptoms? I've heard symptoms of Gluten Allergies include digestive problems, unexplained nausea (that is, not caused by being dizzy), constipation or diarrhea... How do you know if you're allergic to something?

 

...That's what I would think but I never had any other indications of a food allergy and even tested negative for gluten on teh allergy testing. That cost me another vertigo attack when I tried gluten again. My only opinion is that our inner ear is far more sensitive than anything else so it picked up on the food alergy before any of the other symptoms came.
Rick

 

..I have seen an improvement in my hearing but amazingly enough it came from the Glycemic index and not thegluten free diet. I went from a 50 db loss to a 30 db loss. I also saw the distortion go away with the GI diet. It's nice to hear with clarity again and understand what people are saying. The distortion gave me a 75% loss in speach recognition. I believe that I have a zero loss now but have not been retested for speach recognition. But I can hold my finger in either ear while listening to something and can understand equally with my bad ear though somewhat muffled. Before, I could hear things in my bad ear but the distortion made it almost impossible to understand what was being said.
Rick

 

Istarted using my inner ear as a tool to tell me what to eat and what not to eat - like when I drank more water than what my body could balance, there will be a slight itching sensation in my ear. same thing if I take fruit very high in potassium.

Our inner ear fluid where all the imbalance is shown is contains Calcium, Potassium and Sodium.
So even a calcium deficiency can make your body weaker, and your body responds to it with inner ear imbalance.
Our body is a fantastic machinery, that tells us what to eat, only we do not understand the symptoms until very late.
I changed my whole life style, froma high stressed software engineer to a very peaceful life.
I believe, as has been mentioned in soem of the posts above, I got out of menieres sooner, before it became full blown.
It could be simple things in food that cause the allergy - even table salt that I used to use, is hard for the body to digest because it is chemically processed to remove all trace minerals - I try to use Himalayan salt where the crystal structure is preserved, easy for the body to absorb. even sea salt is a better alternative. you might notice that you are not that sensitive to salt if you use natural salts.

 

I have food sensitivities also, without having any other symptoms than ear pressure and dizziness/vertigo (and sometimes an increase in tinnitus but not always). It's all in learning what triggers you and trying to avoid them.
None of the foods I am sensitive to give me a rash or anything. Only eggs make me extremely sick when I eat them (digestive wise).
I think from what I've read, even allergy testing is not 100 percent accurate to tell what you are allergic to, no?

 

Snow, I am glad you found something to ease your symptoms. They are caused by many different things in different people and I think it's great you were able to isolate what your problem stemmed from and get some relief.
I have read that many people started off with MM and developed the vertigo later on down the road so maybe you nipped in it the bud before that happened. Either way, lucky you for having no vertigo! Keep doing what you're doing and I'm sure we're all keeping our fingers crossed that it continues to work for you.

 

Snow, can you make a statement about your approach to health and healing in general? You've mentioned some interesting things, like the Himalayan salt and the lifestyle changes...I suspect that there are other things that you are also doing, and thinking and maybe the way that you have approached the dx of Menieres...that could be instructive...

Tamara

 

Hi Tamara, Basically I started respecting the body. Body is giving us warnings ahead of time before a worse disease sets in.
And I found I was stressing myself out because I was not happy at my work, I was eating junk, no exercise, not at all happy inside. My body gave off the signals and I became like a caretaker to my body. Then started the metamorphosis. Please read a book by George Ohsawa, "Essential ohsawa" and a book by Eckhardt Tolle "Power of now". They are powerful books that can change our very destiny. I took charge of my disease instead of doctors.

With macrobiotics principles, I started eating what was healing to my body - I went through a sea change in my life. Everybody has got to find the rhythm in life.
There IS a cure - that's what macrobiotic principles teach us. Our body is telling us to wake up and change the way we eat, live our lives.
My accupuncture doctor once told me "it could be worse, there are people with terrible pain instead of constant ringing in ear"

I started monitoring each and EVERY thing I ate. like a food diary. I took 1.5 years off from the stressful job. enjoying life. It is mind blowing, the amount of inner growth you get by concentrating on yourselves, illness is a blessing in disguise.

 

That's a powerful statement, I'll be thinking of it today. I've also saved it to my desktop. I am impressed by your approach and I will strive to follow it!
Tamara

 

Congrats I am this week going to try accupuncture i do hope that it gives me relief... wow the first to hear about gluten I am giving it a try I hope that you find yourself in remission for a very long time I will not say cure I had been in denial myself that i had it under control and that it was gone the reality of it slapping me in the face will not happen again and dont take those days free of the disease for granted be thankfull and it is great to hear of hopefull and wonderfull news

 

Yeah...that's kind of how it happened for me. After two years of almost symptom free, it came back. But, mostly I can attribute it's return to not respecting the body etc. as Snow described. I began to take my health for granted. By the way, you have to go all the way for the gluten thing to work...no wheat, or wheat by products (in a lot of processed foods!), no oats, barley, rye. I am going to look into the macrobiotic diet that Snow recommends next.
Tamara

 

I was on a gluten free diet well before I was diagnosed. It did not cure me, but it does help manage my MM. I still get unsteady or tinnitus with to much sodium and/or sugar.

 

...If you find sugar triggers your symptoms, you may want to check out the Glycemic Index. There aqre some complex carbs that metabolize faster than simple carbs(sugars). Mainly white starches (rice and potatoes). www.glycemicindex.com
Rick

 

Sometimes even fruits trigger ear ringing. too sweet especially mangoes.

Since my case was kidney related, I went on a diet easier for the kidney
no animal protein, only smaller beans. Less salt and no spices.

every disease has an end. Our body is a big chemical factory and we can control and change the destiny of our body through careful eating and drinking.

This is what I learnt. Also the weather has a HUGE impact - I moved from NY to Texas and that helped me greatly - warm sunshine is easier on the body than cold winters , strains the body to maintain body temperature.
I now live in southern India, a very hot place.

So you could consider moving to a place that is warmer.

 

While I am very thrilled you found help, true MM is a complex disease. Changing diet will not help everyone, it just means this was YOUR trigger. Unfortunately to say every disease has an end is very simplistic. Many people cannot change disease in their body by changing their diet. I'm glad you were able to but then again maybe you had allergies and not MM. Lisa