HEALTH
I’ve Got What? Meniere’s Disease?
Speak Up! I Can’t Hear You.
I have Meniere’s Disease.
Here, for all of you hypochondriacs, are the symptoms:
Fullness in one ear
Tinnitus (ringing ears)
Vertigo
Migraines
Although I’ve had ringing ears for decades, my ENT doesn’t think this was caused by Meniere’s, which, in his opinion, is a whole different reason why my ears ring.
Although we can’t be sure.
The medical profession doesn’t fully understand Meniere’s, in part because it’s such a rare disease. (Only 0.2 percent of the US population has it.)
So what does Meniere’s mean for me, besides ringing ears?
Hearing loss!
I’m going deaf in my right ear even faster than I was genetically destined to go deaf in that ear.
My dad and my Aunt Freda lived to be 87 and 94, respectively. In his last decade, my father definitely needed his hearing aid (although he continued to thrive as a psychoanalyst).
And Aunt Freda was deaf as a post.
Holiday dinners with the two of them weren’t tranquil. With dad, you had to SPEAK VERY LOUDLY. When it came to Aunt Freda you had to holler at the top of your lungs. (And you never really knew if anything you said was getting through.)
I always figured that if I were lucky enough to live that long, I too would go deaf. Unless the medical profession came up with a Miracle Cure for Deafness.
I am not counting on this.
Why not? My ears have been ringing nonstop for three decades, and they have yet to come up with a miracle cure for Tinnitus. Nor, for that matter, have they cured my endometriosis.
And they’ve had well over a century to find a miracle cure for Menieres, which was discovered by a French doctor back in 1861.
I’ve apparently got a knack for coming down with chronic conditions that the medical profession can’t cure.
While all of these conditions chip away at my quality of life and can be deeply annoying, none of them is life-threatening. I’m sure that anybody with terminal cancer would be happy to trade it in for what ails me.
Which isn’t to say that Meniere’s cannot be hellishly debilitating. On a bad day, panicking and puking as the world spins so wildly that I can’t stand up?
Having Menieres can be pretty grim.
And I haven’t even experienced Meniere’s scariest symptom — the Drop Attack. This is a sudden fall without loss of consciousness, which is said to feel like “being pushed sharply to the floor from behind.”
That’s all I need. Nausea. Vertigo. Ringing ears. Then — the pratfall from Hell.
Many people experience some or all of these symptoms for years before being correctly diagnosed. (I’m guessing that at least one person reading this is beginning to suspect they might have Meniere’s themselves.)
And many people with Meniere’s are whacked with so many symptoms in such a bad way that they are unable to function.
This thing can suck the joy out of life.
Which means? I’m very lucky that my own worst symptom — so far — is hearing loss. With the occasional totally-Godawful-but-usually-over-in-two-hours vertigo attack. And that I can keep the number of attacks to a minimum by sticking to a ridiculously low salt diet. (That’s 2000 mg/day, for those of you who are keeping track.)
Because I’m a glass-half-full kind person, instead of dreading what might come, I’m focusing on enjoying my (mildly compromised) hearing while I’ve still got it.
Still, if there’s anything you have to say to me?
Better say it now, while I can still hear you.
Writing Coach and editor-for-hire Roz Warren, who writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, can help you improve and publish your work. Drop her a line at [email protected]. (That’s Ros with an “s,” not a “z.”)