The subject of Meniere’s disease and gentamicin always seems to garner attention among those with this disorder. I have written quite a few posts on my experience with the shots and how I felt afterward. Since it has been quite a while since I had my last gent injection I thought would share a few thoughts about it now.
In the past 3 years I have had 2 sets of gentamicin injections, one in 2008 and the other set in 2010. I went into receiving the shots with the feeling that there wasn’t any harm in doing them except possibly losing some of my hearing which wasn’t a big concern because I had already lost quite a bit of my hearing in my left “bad” ear. I was told that the whole premise behind getting these injections was to kill the balance in the bad ear and after a short recovery time all my balance would be in the unaffected right ear. That sounded fine.
As I had written before after the first set of shots I had quite a long recovery time that caused me to go on short term disability. My good ear unfortunately didn’t want to pick up the slack and carry the load of my bad ear. After many months things calmed down somewhat, there were still balance issues but not as bad as before. All that changed at the beginning of 2010 I started to regularly have problems with vertigo again and the attacks were as bad as ever. In the spring of 2010 my vertigo and balance problems caused me one again to go on short term disability.
Shortly after I left work my doctor suggested another round of gent injections. I only had two shots this time and they didn’t do anything to help. Looking back I regret having the second series of injections because they did no good and I think that they made my hearing a lot worse.
The one thing that I can’t understand is the fact that I still have vertigo. I thought that the injections would have somehow taken care of it but they didn’t.
One thing to always remember is that a treatment might not work for someone (like me) but it could be beneficial to you.
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Sunday, March 20, 2011
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10 comments:
David, it sounds as if you might have had the same reaction as I did to the gentamicin: My vestibular nerve grew back. It healed itself and began functioning again, which is why I also had vertigo again after having the gentamicin shots.
Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that I've had vertigo and vomiting even since I had the labyrinthectomy surgery last October and am still suffering from vertigo now. I've just started applying for disability (short-term AND SSD) and have no idea if I will ever be completely normal again or able to return to work in a meaningful and lucrative way.
This seems to be the way Meniere's Disease works... there are no guarantees that any treatment will work, or that it will be effective permanently. It's really, really disappointing.
Peggy,
I agree with you especially about the disappointing results from some treatments. Keep hanging in there and hopefully some treatment will be developed to help with meniere's.
David
Same to you, David.
I just recently retired from Active Duty Military and will be going in for Gent shots next week. How does one qualify for SSD/I after this is done, since it would appear that i wont be able to even get to an interview let alone get a job in the short term. I already applied for SSI and am waiting to hear what they say. If the say no, then what?
Hi Kurt,
If you get turned down for ssi you can always appeal and at that point it is a good idea to get a lawyer.
David
Kurt, I'm using a lawyer to apply for SSD. For me, it's worth it to avoid all the confusion and hassle. I get rattled by red tape pretty easily. Most lawyers who specialize in SSD do it on a contingent fee basis, which means they don't get paid until and unless you get approved for the SSD. My lawyer charges a percentage of the first payment I will get from SSD, which is retroactive because the process can take several months. The lawyer also has a cap set in place so the fee can't become astronomical. For me, it seems well worth it.
As David says, you can appeal the SSI decision. And you can apply for both.
I say try for the SSD. It's a long process, but it will be worth it if you get it. If you try to use a lawyer, they will most likely interview you by phone to see if they think you have a good shot at getting the payments. If they think you're a good risk, they will take over from there after getting a TON of information from you.
Best of luck.
I was wondering if you all follow a totally salt freen diet. I am considering injections, however there doesn't seem much point if I still have to follow the same rigorous diet.
Thanks
Judy
The point of the injections is NOT to get you off the hook with the salt-free diet -- it's another treatment designed to work together with others with the goal of preventing Meniere's attacks. If you want to experiment with going off the salt-free diet, it's up to you. But there's no way of knowing if having the injections will make it easier for you to do so.
For me, the attacks are so awful I would cheerfully keep up the diet, get more injections, and do anything else that seemed to work, as long as I don't get the vertigo and vomiting. I even went so far as to have the surgery to cut the vestibular nerve. And yes, it's been worth it for me. It's all been a total pain in the butt, but it's worth it.
So David,
I did do a gent injection after my last bout of Short term disability and steriod injection failure to help.(your blog helped ALOT in making that decision, thank you) I didn't have the huge "fallout" that you are supposed to have post injection, but i did have a reasonably mild attack (as attacks go for me, 8-10 hours of straight vomiting) But here is the interesting part. I started seeing a homeopathic NP after all of this. And i'm taking some herbal suppliments along with my lasix. And SUPER intersting to me, I have gotten most of my hearing back in my left ear.
I'm taking Ginko, Euphrasia complex, and Horsechesnut Complex. They are pretty begnin herbs (they shouldn't interact with other things) and for some reason. I can almost hear with my left ear again, when everything about Gent and all that says i shouldn't. i was for the most part deaf in my left ear before all of this. Obviously won't work for everyone, but maybe something others can be intersted in getting into as well.
I was skeptical at first that any of this just wasn't a fluke with the disease, but its the ONLY thing i changed from pre gent to post gent. To be honest, i'm still skeptical. But, i'm not going to stop taking them by the off chance that they are actually helping.
Thoughts? have you heard of these herbs and effects?
Nikki, I think the jury is still out on whether supplements help, but it's worth continuing if you find it helps you! Gingko used to be recommended for tinnitus, but then fell out of favor. I don't know anything about Euphrasia or Horsechestnut complexes. Might have to look them up.
But don't rule out the possibility that the gentamicin injection changed something for you. It did for me, although the effects wore off in my case.
Meniere's is such a hard thing to pin down. Maddening.
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