How is Meniere’s disease diagnosed?

How and when did I know I had Meniere’s Disease?

When I first started to get dizzy a few weeks after my car accident, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I had heard about vertigo, but like most folks I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. I remembered the movie and it seemed to be about a fear of heights, nothing about dizziness. I began to wonder if it was a heart attack. So I was anxious to get to the doctor.

I went to my regular doctor and he immediately sent me to an ENT because if it had to do with balance that would be the first place to go. When I got to the ENT’s office I was put through a series of tests, first hearing, and then balance. After examining the results the doctor indicated that I had lost a good deal of hearing in my left hear. He also stated that it didn’t look like I had vertigo. The next step was to have an MRI, something that I had had in the past and dreaded. He told me that it was necessary so he could rule out a tumor.

Luckily, the MRI machine was partially open, so I didn’t feel like I was crammed in a hole. The test came back, no tumor.
At that point the ENT told me that I might have Meniere’s Disease, he explained that this was the term that was generally used when vertigo was ruled out and there wasn’t any brain tumor.

So, to recap my diagnosis was reached by hearing tests, balance tests and a MRI. I know other doctors use different tests, such as the caloric test, to determine if it is Meniere’s Disease. But most all of them use MRI.