What is Meniere's Disease?

A disorder in the inner ear that greatly affects hearing and balance is the best way to describe what menieres disease is. Menieres disease got its name from Prosper Meniere, a French physician, who made a report in 1861 that vertigo attacks are caused by disorders in the inner ear. Such disorder is brought by an increased volume and pressure of an inner ear fluid called the endolymph. But the reason behind the increase in volume and pressure of this fluid has not been known.

There are four major symptoms of menieres disease. These are vertigo/dizziness, tinnitus, progressive hearing loss, and aural fullness. A person who exhibits these four major symptoms that are incapacitating must undergo medical tests. If results cannot determine a possible cause then this is what you would call menieres disease.

Below are the thorough explanations of the symptoms:

•  VERTIGO/DIZZINESS – Vertigo is the most upsetting symptom of menieres. This attack is the usual reason why a patient would seek medical advice. It often occurs suddenly and reaches the peak of its intensity in a few minutes. It could last for an hour or maybe more before it subsides. Vertigo is described as one of the most awful suffering to affect the human body. A person with vertigo would either perceive that the surrounding is spinning around or that they are spinning. Patients would also have nausea and vomiting as a result of the vertigo. Nausea and vomiting therefore are not to be considered as the symptoms of menieres disease. Progressive hearing loss, feeling of fullness and pressure in the ear and tinnitus may follow vertigo.

•  TINNITUS - Tinnitus is the continuous and loud ringing sound in the ears in the absence of an actual external sound. The tinnitus in menieres disease is non-stop and does not subside but its intensity may fluctuate. The type is usually non-pulsatile and it is heard as a piercing roar or buzzing.

•  PROGRESSIVE HEARING LOSS – Hearing loss occurs usually in one ear. The affected ear loses sensitivity mostly to low frequency sound. Sounds perceived by the ear appear to be hard and fuzzy. There is also growing intolerance to loud noise. Hearing loss is fluctuating, there are times hearing recovery happens to some point but there are also times when hearing is difficult. The loss of hearing also progressively worsens in time.

•  AURAL FULLNESS – The feeling of pressure or fullness in the ear is best described in comparison to the experience during times of changes in barometric pressure (like that of the feeling when we ascend or descend highly elevated places). But unlike in cases of pressure changes, swallowing cannot alleviate the fullness.

 

Patients affected with menieres do not exhibit the symptoms at all times. An “attack” is the term used when symptoms occur. Attacks happen only sometimes or often and these occur without warning. The attacks may last only a few minutes, hours or the whole day. It can happen either at day or at night. But the exhaustion brought about by the attack could tire a person and render the person useless for a day or sometimes longer. Even though an acute attack can be debilitating, menieres in itself is not contagious and life threatening.

The disease usually affects only one ear but there are about 30% of patients who gets affected on both ears. Usually it is not only the patient but also the whole family who gets affected. The family also has to move around carefully and be still during attacks. Also, speaking to a person who can't hear you well in one or both ears could be tiring and frustrating. Adults are the one's usually afflicted with menieres although there are also a few cases seen in children and young adults.

Scientists have made several investigations to the probable causes of the disease. They have included noise pollution, environmental factors and viral infections as well as other biological factors like infections of the middle ear, allergies, head injuries, stress and fatigue, alcohol or smoking, syphilis and bacterial infections.

Since there is an increase in the volume and pressure of the ear fluid, what is better known as the endolymph, on a patient with menieres disease there are damages that happen to the ear. Repeated attacks can kill the hair cells. The process is gradual but often results to hearing loss in the affected ear. Mechanical distortion in the inner ear also happens because of the dilation of the saccule and utricle of the ear. This can result to the gradual inception of chronic unsteadiness even in the absence of attacks.