In the spring of 2000, my wife, my brother-in-law & I went out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant in our area. I think we pretty much all enjoyed the evening. A couple of hours later after we had gotten home, I started getting severe stomach cramps. In a very short period of time I was violently sick & couldn't stop throwing up over & over. I felt terrible that my brother-in-law had come to spend the evening with us & this is how it went, but I couldn't stop.
We all talked about what we had had to eat that night & my wife called the restaurant to tell them we thought I had gotten food poisoning, we really didn't want anyone else to get this sick. However the manager or chef or whoever my wife spoke with informed us that the chicken (what I had) came in precooked & there was no way I could have gotten any kind of food problem from it. We didn't really know what to think but decided it had to have been something at dinner that affected me because there was nothing else unusual we had done for days. It was probably about 2 months later when I began to get sick again, with the painful continuous vomiting. Now we were a lot more concerned. There was no explanation & had been no problem for a long time. We had assumed whatever happened before was an isolated incident.
After that time, I started to have this as a continuing pattern, once every 6-8 weeks. This has been a while back so my memory is not very clear but I believe when I would get sick it would typically last about a day & a half. The more time went on, the frequency increased. Soon it was once a month, then every couple weeks. Then even on into weekly. By now I started recognizing signs it was coming. I'd begin feeling nausea. A sort of dizziness or disorientated feeling. Certain things such as laying my head down & closing my eyes helped, but there were no certain triggers. I was having difficulty because there would be days I would spend most of the day at work in the bathroom sitting on the floor knowing if I tried to leave I'd be sick again soon. And I was not in any condition to drive myself 18 miles home. We knew I had to see someone.
At the time we decided to do this, my wife was working for one of the top neurosurgeons in the country, he was head of the KC Board of Neurology. We went to him for advice on who to go see. At this point, I had been sick for two days straight & could hardly sit up with my eyes open for any length of time without getting nauseous again. Both my uncle & his father had had to change jobs in their early 20's due to problems with severe ulcers. We figured it had finally caught up with me. We were really surprised when my wife's boss suggested it was probably related to some kind of ear infection & prescribed me an anti-seasickness type medicine. It did work for me, in a couple of days I was able to go back to work, but against his advice we still set up an immediate appointment with a GI doctor he knew.
The GI told me he couldn't say for certain about the cause of my problems, but he did know for certain there is only one way to know about an ulcer, to do a scope. Since it was strong in my family history I agreed to do one. The good news was, my duodenum was fine, but the bad news was we still didn't know what to do about my sickness.
I went back to my PCP. She decided that she felt it sounded like I might have Ménière's disease. I think she extended the anti-nausea script, & gave me some guidelines on a low salt diet. She also offered to refer me to a specialist friend, but I passed up the chance to get poked on some more, hoping this would work.
Well between the medicine & the diet it did work - for a while. The problem with the medicine is you could only take it after an episode, it wasn't preventative. And I felt A LOT better after being on the new diet. But over time, I began fading again. Soon it just wasn't enough again & I restarted the cycle of sickness. I gave in & asked my PCP to give me the name of the doctor she knew.
Around this time I began learning more about what they thought was wrong with me.
Actually there is a lot that is NOT known about Ménière's. Even among the experts there is a lot that is not understood, or disagreed over. One reason is that it is a radical disease that can present itself many ways with no predictability. In fact, there are three different diagnoses which are often referred to as "Ménière's". There is Ménière's Disease, Ménière's Syndrome, and Endolymphatic Hydrops. We have come to believe I have the last of these. All three generally share similar symptoms but may have different causes. In my case, people with EH are thought to have Ménière's Disease, but people with Ménière's may not have EH. The disease is thought to be the result of damage to the separating tissue in the inner ear. This tissue keeps the fluid levels regulated in this important control center of the body, but in my case, the fluids mix & can build more & more pressure. Many people experience severe if not eventually total hearing loss and tinnitus or ringing in the ears. I have been lucky to not have any effect to my hearing. Another common effect is the one that has been my worst symptom, a disruption to the balance controls in the inner ear. It is like getting on the ride where the floor drops out & being unable to get off for a day & a half.
I will talk more about the disease later but now back to my story. To continue, please follow to the next page. click here