The beginning of this year was very difficult for me. I was on disability the last 2 months of 2008 and I was going to try to go back to work January. The thing that worried me the most was the unpredictability of the meniere’s attacks. Would I make it to work today? Would I make it home after work? Would I have an attack and how bad would it be? I had to do something to try to put some order into my daily routine and to see if there was anything that I could to make things better. I decided to keep a daily journal of my life according to my Meniere’s disease.
My inner ear specialist mentioned to me to keep track of my attacks so he could see if there were any patterns. Instead of just keeping records of attacks, I also keep records of my medications, how much sleep I got, and how I felt while I was driving.
Would this prevent any attacks? No, but I also wanted to see if there were any useful information that could be found doing this exercise.
The first thing that I noticed was that the Monday morning commute was usually the roughest of the week. I don’t know why exactly but I guess it had to do with not driving much on the weekends. So every Monday I became very aware of what could happen and I was extra careful.
Another pattern that I saw was that at the end of week at work I became very tired (probably due to the medications that I was taking at the time and my sleep apnea) and this made me vulnerable to an attack.
I keep the journal going for about the first 3 months of the year. That is when I began my VRT training which seemed to help and at that time I believe that the inner ear balance had finally become adjusted to the gentamicin injections.
I would definitely recommend anyone to keep a journal of their experiences with meniere’s it could be quite helpful.
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Friday, September 25, 2009
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2 comments:
I have to say thankyou for such a great and informative blog. Here is a bit about me at the age of 10 I lost total hearing in my right ear and 25years on I started feeling unwell Vertigo, Vomiting , I would fall over & uncontrollable Tinnitus. I went to my GP and he said that It sounded like Meniere's Disease which he suffers from. He put me on Stemitel Tablets which did not work he then changed the medication to Serc and sent me to my ENT Who said that I had a bad virus and sent me home. This went on for 12 months with every attack getting worse I went back to my GP and asked him to refer me to a Prof. Gibson who specializes in Meniere's. When I saw him he said straight off that I had something very similar to Meniere's Disease that I had suddenly lost 25% Balance in my right ear and this was causing the problems. In april this year I had a series of 3 injectons of Gentamician over 3 weeks. I have not had another attack since but I still constantly feel Nortious without vomiting and at night I still suddenly loose balance. I am back playing tennis and riding the harley again!!!!
Well I am glad that the gent injections had such a positive effect on you. I had them last year and after a few months I started to feel better also.
I'm curious about the Serc, did it help at all? Here in the states most doctors don't find it of any use (I think it is legal in the states but I will have to check)
Thanks for commenting and keep in touch.
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