Meniere's Disease

Meniere's Disease

Meniere's disease is a disease characterized by severe dizziness, nausea and vomiting, hearing loss, buzzing and ringing in the ears, and a feeling of fullness. Its feature is that it comes in crises. The first crisis is always more severe and lasts longer. There is hearing loss with accompanying buzzing and ringing in every crisis. Crises take away a little more from hearing each time.

Although it is a typical feature of Meniere's disease, these may not necessarily occur together in every case. It is the anamnesis given by the patient that helps the physician most in diagnosis. In addition, it is useful to perform additional tests to strengthen the diagnosis. It is not possible to perform any additional tests on the patient who presents during the crisis. In this case, the priority is to comfort the patient. After the patient's dizziness is controlled with sedative treatment, which is usually administered by hospitalization, necessary investigations can be conducted for maintenance treatment.

Hearing testing can provide significant information in established Meniere's disease. In addition, more supportive information can be obtained with videonystagmography and VEMP tests. Electrocochleography has been among the tests used in the diagnosis of Meniere's Disease for years. Drug therapy is primarily preferred in the treatment of Meniere's disease.

Although strict attention to diet (restricting salt, staying away from caffeine and cigarettes) has been recommended until now, recent studies have shown that salt restriction has no place in the treatment of Meniere's and even consuming excess water improves hearing levels.

• We use diuretics during crisis periods.
• We widely use vasodilator drugs. Betahistine dichloride 24 mg 2×1 is the drug we use frequently.
• In cases where there is no response to drug treatment, we prefer invasive treatments.
• Cortisone and gentamicin injections into the middle ear are popular treatments in recent years.
• Control of Meniere's disease with endolymphatic sac surgery is possible in 70-75% of cases.
• In cases where all these treatments are not effective, a 96% response rate can be obtained by cutting the vestibular nerve.