Rick's Story

Disclaimer: The following is what I do to control my vertigo attacks and I am in no way suggesting that anyone should try any of these things. I'm just telling what works for me and as you know, we are all different.

To get a diagnoses of Meniere's, a person usually has tinnitus (ringing in the ear), Fullness in the affected ear (possibly Eustachian tube dysfunction), hearing loss that usually starts in the low frequencies, and the occasional vertigo attack. From my time on the Meniere's Message Boards, I have found that there are lots of definitions for vertigo and lots of confusion when it comes to vertigo. So before I start my story, I think it would be good to explain my definitions of vertigo so that my story makes sense, especially when I also get BPPV type symptoms.

The main type of vertigo that I got from my Meniere's was what I can best describe as an "Illusion "of movement. When I would open my eyes, the whole world seemed to revolve around me. When I would close my eyes there was no spinning.

There is also a type of vertigo that is best described as a "sensation" of movement. This vertigo gives a "feeling" that everything is moving or spinning. I have had these types of vertigo attacks with my BPPV-like attacks. I say BPPV-Like because I don't have an official diagnosis of BPPV. BPPV stands for Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo and here's a link for more information.

http://www.tchain.com/otoneurology/disorders/bppv/bppv.html

The Illusion type of vertigo attacks lasted for about 4 to 6 hours and there were few symptoms after they were over. The sensation type attacks lasted for days in my case. I talk primarily about vertigo because that was the disabling part of this disease for me. After a few years, I grew accustom to the tinnitus, hearing loss, and fullness. And while irritating, it was the vertigo attacks that dealt me the most misery.

I found that I had two main triggers for the Meniere's vertigo attacks (illusion). They were food allergies and from missing meals (fasting). My food allergy was to wheat and oats (gluten). I believe the underlying cause to be the histamine that is released from an allergic reaction, so any release of histamine could cause the same problem of vertigo. I am presently on a gluten free diet which has helped tremendously. At my worst, I was having 2 vertigo attacks every week, constant brain fog, constant dizziness, and constant fatigue. Within three days of going gluten free, all these symptoms disappeared except occasionally. It was no longer chronic or constant. These attacks hit suddenly right after eating.

This eliminated the majority of my vertigo attacks except for the ones that were triggered when I didn't eat on a regular basis. I narrowed this problem down to my carbohydrate metabolism and to make a long story short, by avoiding or reducing the amount of high glycemic foods, I solved this problem also. My condition is sometimes called pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, or hyperinsulinemia. From my understanding, they are basically the same thing and is just an overreaction of our pancreas to carbohydrates that cause a rapid rise in blood sugar. Basically the pancreas releases too much insulin.

I now follow a diet where the meals are planned using the glycemic index. The glycemic index is just a rating of carbohydrates based on how they affect the metabolism. THIS IS NOT A LOW CARB DIET!!! Everybody always gets them confused. You can have as many carbs as you want on this diet but the lower their index is, the better. It was a diet developed for type 1 and type 2 diabetics. What I primarily found was that potatoes and rice were causing these rapid rises in blood sugar more than table sugar was.

I can now go many hours without eating and have no ill effects. I also saw a drop in my blood pressure and my triglycerides dropped from 350 to 97. So this diet can have lots of other benefits also. This diet is also recommended for women who suffer from PCOS, so excess insulin must cause lots of problems. Here's a link to some info on the diet: http://www.mendosa.com/gi.htm or http://www.glycemicindex.com

By eliminating my food allergy, following the glycemic index, and eliminating a few more triggers that I discovered, I have now gone over 2 years without a vertigo attack. Here are a few of the other triggers that I avoid: Coffee, aspartame, sucralose, formaldehyde fumes, strong perfume odors, and diesel oil fumes.

From time to time I also get BPPV-like attacks. These are more of the "sensation" of moving vertigo. While annoying, they aren't disabling like the other type of vertigo. They usually last about a week and I have found a relationship with working long hours in the heat with these attacks. Since my potassium intake was lowered when I reduced the amount of potatoes I ate and the fact that a person loses a lot of potassium when they sweat all day long from the heat, I started supplementing my diet with bananas and apple juice to replace the potassium I was losing. This seems to help, the attacks are a lot less severe now and it cut down on the frequency of them. MSG seems to be involved in a few of the attacks, so I have tried to eliminate that also.

I have also noticed that airborne allergies will make me dizzy and I use Flonase and a Phenylephrine nose spray to keep my sinuses clear.

Another thing that can affect my dizziness is stress and that seems to be a common trigger for many of us. I believe a possible reason is either adrenal exhaustion or adrenal suppression. I'll let you Google on those to find out more. But food allergies and a hyperactive metabolism can put a lot of stress upon the adrenal system along with the mental stress. That why I think the brain fog, dizziness, and fatigue went away when I eliminated my food allergy. Just something to think about when your trying to find a rhyme or reason for this dang disease.

Thanks for listening.
Rick1254@aol.com