"Researchers may have discovered a plan to disable Meniere's disease"

I sure hope she answers. I would really be interested in hearing her feelings on it and what her opinions are based on.


Clearly, I’m in no position to speak for the researcher, explaining why she made no account of a possible viral involvement in the cause and treatment of Meniere’s Disease.

But clearly, among the great majority of physicians dealing with the disease (and researchers, too, it would seem), viral factors are dismissed out of hand, primarily because virtually all of the accepted medical literature on the disease clearly states that MM is idiopathic. It’s cause is not, and perhaps may not, be known.

Those who propose and operate from a herpes virus Meniere’s perspective are simply on the fringes of accepted Meniere’s knowledge. Most physicians, for a number of reasons, operate only from published and accepted medical knowledge.

And yes, there have been a number of studies and publications clearly showing herpes viruses as root causes of the disease, and when treated with appropriate antiherpetic drugs, welcome levels of symptomatic relief are gained.

But these studies and publications are simply not paid attention to by the majority of physicians specializing in Meniere’s Disease. They go against what the doctors already know. And the “I’m the Doctor!” self-expression of superiority complicates the matter. Medical truths are not always perceived or accepted.

Medicine is famous for being chronically reluctant in accepting new, divergent explanations and treatments. It took almost a century for the entire medical community to accept the germ theory of disease. Physicians practice from experience and habit. And most have had no experiences with proper prescriptions of antiherpetic drugs.

–John of Ohio

 

Dr.Foster wrote back to me today:

Hello again,
I don't know if you have the time or be so inclined,but a Menieres forum that I am on is very interested in your research.The site tends to lean towards the viral theory.Several people have wanted to know how you felt about a virus as the cause of Menieres as Dr.Gacek has suggested. Is there a brief answer that you could give about viral involvement and why you are not researching that angle as well ?

Dear James,

One of the difficulties of Meniere's research is that the disease definition is poorly standardized. Depending on the researcher, almost anyone with vertigo can receive the diagnosis of Meniere's disease. This means that many other vertigo disorders, like viral infections of the 8th nerve and Scarpa's ganglion, can be lumped in the Meniere category. I have recently published a chapter on viral infections of the inner ear and its nerves in the book "Textbook of Vertigo. Diagnosis and Management", Publisher: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers, Editors: Dispenza F. and De Stefano A. (2013). This covers the symptoms and treatment of these disorders. Meniere's disease is distinct in causing spells that are repetitive, lasting hours, with vertigo, low tone hearing loss, roaring tinnitus and fullness in the ear. Viral infections are poorly tolerated by the ear and usually result in permanent damage, giving a spell that lasts days or weeks and rarely recurs. It is not uncommon to find viral particles in various tissues; this does not prove that they are responsible for the disease. For example, in the Gacek article, particles were found in the nervous tissue of both ears, while for most Meniere patients, the disease affects just one ear.

 

Glad she answered you but no disrespect to her but I am not sure where she gets her facts from, many of us who have been helped by AVs have spells that are repetitive, lasting hours, with vertigo, low roaring tinnitus and fullness in the ear(MM). And unless I am incorrect many of us are unilaterial at least I am.

My wish is that instead of reading books on MM these doctors and researchers come to the forums and read our posts and experience AV's affect with their MM patients in their practice.

 

Yet another doctor dismissing the herpes virus as a cause of Meniere's symptoms ... many of us can attest that anti virals have turned the disease around for us where conventional treatments had little effect. In addition, the known activity of the herpes virus fits the pattern of Meniere's in many ways:

- Herpes outbreaks (shingles, cold sores, etc.) are episodic and can be in remission for long periods
- Meniere's is episodic and can be in remission for long periods.

- Many people carry the herpes virus and show no symptoms.
- Dr. Gasek found evidence of the herpes virus in biopsies of unaffected ears and in people with no Meniere's diagnosis.

- The herpes virus hides in the nerve cells, making it unreachable by the immune system.
- Dr. Gasek has found the herpes virus present in the vestibular nerve using an electron microscope.

- Herpes outbreaks are often associated with other compromises to the immune system - stress, cold / flu, etc.
- Many Meniere's patients point to the same triggers for their episodes.

The pattern fits, and many patients have had success controlling their symptoms with anti-viral drugs that only target the herpes virus family. This is no coincidence, the slow moving medical community needs time to catch up.

Kind Regards,

Colin

 

Everyone has their own set of symptoms and beliefs,but you can't discount the fact that she didn't read a book she wrote a chapter on viral involvement in the inner ear. The book is by well respected authors from Italy,where I think a lot of research is happening.

 

If I remember correctly I believe that herpes viral particles were found in autopsied people who showed no signs of Menieres.

Also people are found to have endolyphic hydrops and not have Menieres.

So much is still unknown. I am happy that she is looking at Menieres.

 

I guess it hit a nerve with me when she said if it was viral it would not reoccur, I fit the definition of MM to a T and antivirals are suppressing my symptoms.

 

It would be interesting to read her chapter and see how she thinks viral inner ears should be treated.I checked the book is on Amazon,for some reason it is cheaper in the UK. Anyone want to buy and read and report back to us?

 

The only thing that really matters, arcane scholarship and research notwithstanding, is whether or not some treatment gives useful, real symptomatic relief.

The academics and researchers can dispute all they want the virual cause phenomenon. More power to them. But the only thing that matters is symptomatic relief for patients. Sufficient administration of antiherpetics (as with Dr. Gracek) have demonstrably provided this, with a high rate of treatment success.

The cold fact remains. Many suffering from Meniere's will continue to experience severe, progressing, and severe symptoms when their attending physicians simply refuse to prescribe antiherpetics. The only useful alternative is to find and go to a physician who will.

--John of Ohio

 

i think medical researchers are far more knowledgeable than people on this forum give them credit for. Somebody does not spend many years in school and in clinics around the world analyzing, researching, studying and looking for answers only to be told they basically have no idea what they are talking about.

If this was as easy as prescribing antivirals then there would be no menieres. This syndrome has been around for 150 years and i am quite sure one of the first things prescribed was antibiotics and antivirals. Doctors and researchers are not ignorant people who want to see people suffer needlessly.

All the top docs and researchers that are mentioned on this forum on a daily basis i am sure know each other and correspond far more than you and i would ever suspect. If there was a breakthrough or promising treatment i am sure it would spread like wildfire among them. I have a feeling that this disease if far more complicated than we can imagine and to encourage people to swallow antivirals and other supplements found in an alternative medical book under the headline "menieres disease" is a little reckless and don't you think.

 

Readers are welcome to believe that doctors freely, willingly, and productively share and endorse new and effective disease treatments.

But that’s not the historical record.

Explain, if you will, just why 19th century doctors castigated Ignaz Semmelweis, a physician who discovered and declared that doctors attending human births should dutifully wash their hands before and after delivering a baby. Doctors who didn’t do this, as Semmelweis so clearly documented and claimed, had 10 to 35% of their birthing mothers die of puerperal fever. Fewer than 1% of mothers being attended to by clean-hands doctors ever got the lethal disease.

Now wouldn’t you suppose that doctors would have freely welcomed, endorsed, and immediately embraced simply hand-washing (just as we’d expect modern physicians to carefully examine, and then on the basis of demonstrated treatment results, embrace antiherpetic Meniere’s therapies)?

Nope. That’s not how the personalities who become doctors operate. The majority of physicians (thankfully, not all) tend to be self-important and a bit arrogant. The vast majority of physicians are oldest children, who since kindergarten excelled academically. From their first days in school, they were better than all the other students—a fact that exceedingly pleased their mothers. (“My son, the Doctor!”)

This sort of training and academic experience bases itself not on an out-going and expansive search for external truth; rather, it focuses on the doctor’s becoming “the expert,” and that expertise is based solely on his education. He went to the best med school; did his residency in the best hospital; all under the very best and most knowledgeable medical professors—people even smarter and more capable then he was.

Physicians, bless their hearts, are regarded by their mothers and much of society as Health-giving Priests. Their knowledge (or lack there of) can never be challenged. They know all that can be known about the specialties they focus on.

So it was with Semmelweis:

Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings. Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the French microbiologist's research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died at age 47 after being beaten by the guards, only 14 days after he was committed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis)

Doctors aren’t gods or priests. They are very capable and competent human beings, prone the same sorts of sins of self-importance the rest of us are. The medical system, unfortunately, does little to obviate these proclivities.

Ask any physician prescribing antiherpetics for Meniere’s, about how his colleagues feel about it. (Or, ask practicing nurses about such matters.)

Now don’t anyone misunderstand or mis-characterize my thoughts. I have a number of physicians as reasonably close friends; and several family members. None of this is a castigation of physicians, their talents, capabilities, or contributions to private and public health. It’s a statement of an unfortunate trait of Western Medicine since the 19th century. Many physicians struggle against it, and many med schools are more helpfully dealing with it. But the personally-competitive nature of modern medical practice and focus on unique institutional medical training (and the faculty-focused knowledge conveyed therein) makes things difficult.

And yes, medicine castigated Lister, Pasteur, and many others. It’s the historical tradition. Reject “unproven, unsubstantiated” new treatments and explanations. What we know now is the professionally-accepted reality.

And the professionally-accepted reality is that Meniere’s is profoundly idiopathic. End of story.

–John of Ohio

 

How do researchers that do not consider the viral theory, explain why so many of us get relief from our MM symptoms from antivirals? And how do they explain Dr Gaceks 90% success rate with his MM patients who he prescribes antivirals for? and the 30 some odd studies on these forums by doctors/researchers that support the viral theory.

They don't explain the success rate they just discount it. They give theories why a viral cause is not the cause of MM but they have never addressed antivirals high success rates with MM.

I respect doctors and researchers but they are not perfect and all knowing or infallible by a long shot.

We (meaning those helped by av's) are living proof that antivirals suppress MM symptoms, I do not need to be a doctor to know that, for the first time in my life I have been vertigo free due to the antivirals..

 

with a self proclaimed 87% success rate maybe i was just the one out of ten people who do the John of Ohio plan that is not cured, same with Dr. Gacek and his 90% success rate. I was that one out ten that is just did not work for. I wish it did, i am glad it worked so well for you. You have a lot to be thankful for. after two gentamicin shots i am still not satisfied and am thinking of the Vestibular Nerve Section or working with Mr. Stephen Spring after the holiday's.

 

I wish you did too halos I wish everyone did, I hope I live long enough to see the day when no one suffers from MM

 

Halos,
I had the same problem with gent, just never felt right. I got a laby and am glad I did. I would recommend anybody with this crap to have a long conversation with Stepen Spring (SS). He knows more about this shit than anybody.

AV's and JOH did nothing for me.
Good luck
BD

 

Do you have a problem with Mothers JOH?

Your post came off as very sexist to me. As if Fathers aren't also proud of their children. :/

My NeuroT doesn't buy into the Herpes theory but he did try Nystatin for yeast with me which was not successful. It tells me he is open minded and he must have his reasons for not prescribing AV's.

Personally, if I could I would have tried AV's when I didn't know what was wrong with me. I think they are worth trying but I think the success rates that are thrown about are a little high. If there were a 90% success rate with AV's I believe more Dr.s would try them.

I think the research has gone way beyond what we talk about here.

 

Just like yourself

Your post is so full of arrogance and hogwash. How did you pull that off? Too much ashwagandha tonight, huh? Chill a little JOH.

 

Hadn't heard of Ashwaganda before. It says this herb imparts the vigor and strength of a stallion. Just ordered a barrel. Or were you referring to its sanskrit translation of "the smell of a horse "

 

Seriously though it looks like Ashwagandha has multiple benefits for depression, thyroid problems, sleep consistency, wild mood swings, bipolar, energy, anti inflammatory to name just some of the potential benefits. Anybody tried it or currently taking it.

 

They say not to judge another unless you can walk a mile in their shoes. So maybe you would like to hear what it's like for me.

For about a decade now I have been practising a method that stops vertigo in people as it is happening. There is a very long story of how I came to find this method, stemming from perfecting it on myself when I was very ill with this. This has not failed. Inevitably those who ask me to try this method on them really don't believe it will work (they HOPE it will but very much doubt it as they believe they have tried everything). When it works, I have their undivided attention. I then teach them how to do what I did for them, for themselves. I tell them that if they keep repeating this daily, the other symptoms with begin to resolve. How far they go with this is up to them.

So what is it that I am doing that is so different from anyone else I have read about? The difference is that I understand that all vertigo is the result of restriction to the ear/head. It is from very real tension that has slowly built up over the years. It is often created by poor diet, poor posture, poor stress release practises etc. I know that to crack the puzzle of how to correct this is not to rely on theory, but simply seek out the unique patterns of tensions in each person and start releasing it. Ironically, this simple method is missed by physios, chiros, masseurs etc.

So try for a moment to be in my shoes where I know what works (maybe not all the time but I've yet to find a situation where it hasn't) but I can only 'convince' people by showing them. I suspect you will read this and argue against it as it's happened so many times over the years. I would not blame you for a moment.

So try those apples on for a moment. Imagine me sitting here tapping into this forum every now and then knowing I can help, but knowing no one seems to want to listen. I have written books, given talks blah, blah, blah. I have almost given up trying to share. In fact, there are days when I forget I even know this. But then along comes someone like today and I help them and it stirs up my desire to help others once again.

Arrogant? May sound that way. But just for a moment imagine you know the answer but you just can't convince others that it can be so simple.