Symptoms of Meniere's Disease: Identifying Causes and Treatments

Recognizing Meniere's Disease: Symptoms and Treatment Options

Meniere's disease is a chronic inner ear disorder that causes vertigo. Attacks often last a few minutes or even an entire day. With time, symptoms deteriorate and can lead to permanent hearing loss and mobility issues. In this blog, we will discuss Meniere's disease meaning, its symptoms and causes, along with common treatments, like medication and therapy, which can help people overcome these symptoms.

What is Meniere's Disease Definition?

Meniere's disease is a rare condition that affects the inner ear. It affects the sense of balance and hearing, and affected people can experience ringing in their ears and difficulty hearing. 
These symptoms start at any point, resulting in major disruption in your daily activity. It is better to seek medical assistance once the symptoms are identified. Once this is left untreated, it can lead to permanent hearing loss.

Stages of Meniere's Disease

There are two stages in which Meniere's disease develops. Sometimes, when the disease reaches even in the 2nd  stage, the affected individuals hardly feel any symptoms.

• Early Stage: In the early stage, Meniere's disease causes unpredictable episodes of vertigo. During this stage, one can feel partial hearing loss that returns to normal once the vertigo is healed. People may go through diarrhoea, blurry vision, jerking eye movements, vomiting, and so forth.

• Advanced Stage: Vertigo is infrequent in the advanced stage of this disease and at some point, it never resurfaces. However, one may also experience issues related to vision, hearing, and mobility. This includes sudden posture breaks, and one can fall even while conscious.

Meniere's Disease Symptoms

Symptoms of Meniere's disease last a maximum of 20 minutes and can hardly stretch up to 24 hours. One can have episodes of Meniere's disease in rapid succession, or sometimes, there are no symptoms at all for an extended period. Some of the common symptoms of Meniere's disease include:

• Vertigo: One may feel the world around them is spinning, and they might fall. Vertigo can be severe, and one may feel that everything around them can fall over. 
• Difficulty in hearing and complete hearing loss: One may face difficulties in hearing in one ear. Initially, it may feel like people have problems hearing the lower pitches. Later, it becomes evident that the affected individuals can lose their hearing. 
• Tinnitus: Tinnitus is a kind of sound that is more like whooshing or hissing. These sounds can be severe from mild distraction to complete disabling. It can affect either one ear or both ears.
• Pressure: The affected individuals can feel the fullness of the ears.

Causes of Meniere's Disease

Experts in the medical field have not come up with any particular reason that leads to such disease. Pathophysiology of Meniere's disease is the growth of endolymph in the inner ear. Some believe that endolymph plays a huge role that may create problems in hearing. There has been hardly any condition that leads to the excessive buildup of endolymph, but some possibilities include: 

• Allergies
• An infection
• A head injury
• Migraine

However, the experts have agreed that more research is required to understand the relationship between Meniere's disease and the buildup of endolymph.

Risk Factors of Meniere's Disease

Individuals aged between 40 and 60 years can develop such a condition as per the standard Meniere's disease definition. Even, the studies have confirmed that AFAB (assigned female at birth) can develop Meniere's disease. Such a condition can be the outcome of a genetic disorder which means people with a family history of Meniere's disease can suffer. Some researchers have even shown that people with autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and ankylosing spondylitis can face this disease.

Diagnosis and Tests

Otolaryngologists are responsible for treating Meniere's disease. They will suggest some physical and neurological exams to determine the symptoms. Such tests show how severe the vertigo and hearing loss could be. Providers may recommend the following tests to confirm if the affected individuals have Meniere's disease or not:

• Hearing test: This test determines whether or not the person is facing any hearing loss. At the time of the test, your provider plays different sounds, and you need to press the button if you hear one. 
• Vestibular test battery: Audiologists conduct several tests to check the condition of your inner ears. When the affected individuals do not go through any vertigo attack, their body goes back to normal. 
• Brain magnetic resonance imaging: This imaging test checks for the development of brain tumours and other underlying issues.

Meniere's Disease Treatment

Treatments are available for Meniere's disease to lower the severity of the attack. Healthcare providers suggest conservative treatments like medication and lifestyle changes to treat such conditions.

1. Medications

Doctors often prescribe the following medications to reduce the symptoms of Meniere's disease:

• Diuretics and betahistine: Diuretics are used to reduce the water levels of the body, and betahistine is used to lower the pressure of the fluid to improve blood flow and circulation in your ears. 
• Motion sickness and anti-nausea medications: These medications relieve the pressure of vertigo attacks and help people get over nausea, vomiting, and spinning. 
• Intratympanic steroid injection: If the symptoms worsen, the doctors inject steroids in the eardrum to reduce the episodes of Meniere's disease. 
• Gentamicin: Gentamicin is used to lower the impact of the attacks. This antibiotic work by causing damage some specific parts of the ear helping to maintain hearing loss and balance.

2. Therapies and Devices

There are options for Meniere's disease treatment, and therapies are one of them:

• Vestibular rehabilitation: This is the process in which affected individuals will learn some form of exercise. These exercises will help manage the balance and improve vertigo symptoms. 
• Hearing aids: You may require hearing aids. However, such aids are not common at the initial stage of this condition. 
• Cochlear implant: If the hearing loss has become severe, your healthcare provider may suggest a cochlear implant. 
• Pressure pulse treatment: This treatment is to puff air on the middle ear that regulates the endolymph level. Experts have differing views on this treatment. 
• Cognitive behavioural therapy: Your healthcare providers suggest a CBT method to treat anxiety and stress related to Meniere's disease.

3. Surgical Process

There are different surgical processes that your health provider may recommend to reduce the fluid pressure from your inner ear.

Some of these surgical procedures are:

• Endolymphatic sac procedure: Surgeons cut the Endolymphatic sac to release the excess fluid from the ear. 
• Vestibular nerve section: Vestibular nerve sends signals to the brain. In this procedure, doctors cut the nerve to reduce the episodes of a vertigo attack. 
• Labyrinthectomy: In this process, the labyrinth gets removed which controls the balance. Providers conduct such surgery if the person has permanently lost hearing in one of the ears.

4. Lifestyle Changes

There are certain lifestyle changes you can incorporate as Meniere's disease treatment:

• Incorporate foods with low salt: Salty foods create excessive fluid in the body leading to inner ear dysfunction. There is a standard to follow when this is about salt. The salt level of your food items should stay within 1500 milligrams of salt daily. You can avoid food containing monosodium glutamate. 
• Reduce the intake of caffeine and alcohol: Caffeine and alcohol can increase the episodes of vertigo attack. 
• Stress management: Research shows that being stressed out for long and not taking enough amount of rest can increase the symptoms of Meniere's disease.

Final Words

Now that you have Meniere's disease meaning, you have to understand that the major concern of the disease is its recurring nature. You cannot take any preventive measures against this condition. If one faces vertigo problems or balance issues, they should contact their healthcare provider without any further delay.