Ocular migraines and Meniere’s disease

As I have said many times before the best thing about this blog is all the wonderful comments that I receive. The first hand experiences that folks write about is so incredibly important because it shows a side of Meniere’s disease that you hardly ever (never) hear from a doctor.  And what is even more important is that on so much of this brings an understanding of what may work to ease or relieve the problems of this disorder.

This week I received a comment from Peggy on ocular migraines...

Saw my ophthalmologist today, and he confirmed that I do have ocular migraines. We talked about going for another MRI, but since I had ocular migraine symptoms before my first MRI, he doesn't think another one would be revealing, and it's been only three years.

 

Otherwise, he says my eyes are healthy, and since the migraines are pretty rare, I can just treat them by lying down with a cool cloth over my eyes and taking aspirin when I get the symptoms. Medication for the migraines would only make me more dizzy, he thinks. THAT I don't need, LOL!

 

We have talked about migraines before and how there is a connection it and Meniere’s disease.  Vision is another piece of the puzzle with this disorder as well. So it is understandable that ocular migraines could bring about Meniere’s.

I read in Mayoclinic.com that with ocular migraines you might see something like…

• Flashes of Light
• Zigzagging patterns
• Blind spots
• Shimmering spots or stars

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The early spring and Meniere’s disease

In Atlanta we usually don’t have much of a winter, a few ice storms and maybe a little snow spread out through the season. We did have a pretty good snow storm at least for us last year, the snow and ice was enough to shut the local schools down for a week. But not this year, no ice storms or snow and the temperature rarely went below freezing. The question that I am wondering now is how this unusual weather will affect my Meniere’s disease?


As we all know the weather has a profound effect on Meniere’s. In the summer the heat always seems to bring out the worse in my dizzy spells and going in and out of the air conditioning doesn’t seem to help either. On the other hand the cool weather isn’t a trigger for my attacks; at least I don’t think so. But the spring is a different story especially this spring where the temperatures have already hit 80 degrees! Spring also brings allergies that can be so harmful for some folks with Meniere’s. I really hope that this early spring isn’t an indication of a long hot summer. If it is I’ll be in trouble.

Just a note on my Social Security case, I have filed another appeal which means Social Security will set up hearing for me. How long will be before the hearing, I don’t know but it could be a while.

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Throwing up and Meniere’s disease

There is a lot of things to hate about Meniere’s disease, the spinning, the surprise attacks and the hearing loss are some of the main ones but becoming sick to your stomach and throwing up has to be one of the worst. I received a comment from Jules the other day and she is certainly having a time with being nauseated! Although she hasn’t had a diagnosis of Meniere’s from a doctor what she is going through sounds awfully familiar.
Here is part of the comment...


The nausea set in I have had four sons and NEVER had thought I had been nauseous before when pregnant (it had nothing on this)
knew I was going to throw up and made the long twelve feet trip to the loo grabbing at walls etc. in a funhouse scene sloping and slanting i almost missed the loo and ended up in the cat tray. Grabbed a bucket and made the scary return trip to my bed Where I lay and vomited periodically into the bucket. I literally couldn’t move if I did the vertigo stated again and i threw up

Your heart really goes out to her because she is also dealing with stresses in her life. Peggy made a good suggestion that Jules needs to find a ENT that is familiar with Meniere’s disease and possibly something to help with the nausea. Mel also suggests an anti-nausea medication as well. Ali also made some good suggestions as well.

I am very thankful and grateful that the readers of this blog are so very helpful to those who feel isolated with the disorder.

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Shunt surgery and Meniere’s disease

When I started this blog in 2009 one of the first posts that I had written was about how I turned down the chance of having the shunt surgery. Just as a recap in 2008 my doctor at the time suggested the surgery and I almost agreed to have it. Fortunately I went to another doctor for a second opinion and I did some research on the web, but places seemed to confirm to me that the surgery wasn’t what I wanted. Although I do know that some folks seem to find that it has helped them, so once again you never know what will work with Meniere’s disease.


What made me think about the shunt surgery was a comment that I received last week. The comment was in reference to marijuana and Meniere’s but it also had something interesting about the shunt surgery.

Here is part of the comment from Amy…

I will post my story about how I've lived with it another time, but I have had to get the endolymphatic mastoid shunt back in 09 because I simply wasn't able to do anything at all.



Since the surgery I haven't had any attacks but I recently had my first drop attack a few months ago and that was quite frightening.



It is really amazing (and scary) that after 4 years a drop attack would occur hopefully this will just be a bump in Amy’s long term recovery.

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