What is Ménière’s disease?

  Meniere’s disease is an idiopathic disease of the inner ear that presents with recurrent episodes of rotational vertigo, fluctuating hearing loss, tinnitus, and a feeling of stuffiness in the ear. The disease occurs most often in middle-aged and young adults between the ages of 30 and 50, and is rare in children.  Typical Ménière’s disease has the following 4 symptoms: 1. Vertigo: Mostly sudden onset of rotational vertigo, patients often feel that surrounding objects rotate around themselves in a certain direction, and the symptoms can be reduced when the eyes are closed. It is often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, pale face, cold sweat and drop in blood pressure. The duration is at least 20 minutes.  2.Deafness: Deafness appears before and after the vertigo attack, and it can often recover after the attack.  3.Tinnitus: Tinnitus appears before and after the vertigo attack, and it can often be recovered after the attack.  4. Ear stuffiness and swelling: During the period of vertigo attack, the affected ear may experience a feeling of swelling, pressure and heaviness in the ear.  It should be noted that the above symptoms do not necessarily appear at the same time. And the interval between attacks may be completely normal, and the duration of the interval may vary from 1 week to several years or even decades.  Diagnosis: The diagnosis can be made mainly by the above-mentioned medical history, combined with pure tone hearing threshold and other examinations.  Treatment: The purpose of treatment is to reduce the number of attacks and control the symptoms, but it is difficult to achieve complete “eradication”. The treatment is divided into three stages: 1) medication, the vast majority of patients can control the symptoms; 2) intra-ear or post-auricular medication can be used if medication is not effective; 3) surgery can be considered if the effect of the first two stages of treatment is still poor.