Has anyone had any experience with Menieres disease?
I have a patient who has had it(right ear) for about 10 years...now experiencing sudden vertigo(drop attacks).
She is middle-aged, anxious, hypochondriacal and quite depressed. She has tinnitus: ringing and roaring. Better for high pitched sounds, worse for low...also worse for reading and turning...tends to fall to right.
Also she has had a constant sensation in her head for 2 months....constrictive band above eyebrows/pressure on bridge of her nose and a very sensitive hairline- better in open air and hat....worse eating.She also has sinus pressure/catarrh and a chronic cough(worse after eating and exercise).She has poor circulation in extremities and lower limbs heavy and dead feeling on waking...otherwise all other symptoms better on waking....
I was thinking perhaps Chenop.?Any advice welcome..
many thanks
Kirsten

Hi Kirsten,

I can't help with remedy selection I'm afraid but I'm sure there are others on the BB who can.

I have some experience of treating Meniere's nutritionally. Simple changes can be very effective in controlling the condition and may help your patient in the short term while you sort them out constitutionally:

Meniere’s Disease is still regarded as idiopathic but most of the medical science research seems to point to mismanagement of fluid within the cells and tissues of the inner ear. There appear to be three main possibilities/ areas to be addressed.

1. There is very strong evidence to suggest that the balance of sodium and potassium is heavily leaning towards excess sodium. It seems common that patients are often advised by orthodox consultants to restrict their salt intake so your patient may already be aware of this. If not, the points I usually stress are avoiding processed/ pre-packaged food where the levels of hidden sodium are often very high and avoiding tea, coffee and alcohol because of their diuretic qualities. Green leafy veg are an excellent source of potassium.

2. Stress is also a medical science supported cause of attacks. My usual advice here is to start with the obvious things like relaxation techniques and meditation. Coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs are all best avoided.

3. There is also research linking Meniere’s to blood sugar disorder, both as hypoglycaemia and late onset diabetes, in particular this is linked to insulin resistance. If there are any suggestions of this my usual advice is to avoid sugars entirely, use only complex carbohydrates - whole grains etc.

Don't know if this is of help

Dave

There are 52 remedies quoted in the rep for this disease!!! It can be helped by homeopathy. Find alocal professional classical homeopath who will take a full case history and prescribe a remedy based on the whole person as an indivdual rather than a disease name.

Sorry - I see from the profile that you are a student homeopath in which case you probably have taken this patient on under supervision. My suggestion to you is to now look at her mental and emotionals and THEN try to find a remedy that MAY match her physical symptoms. I say MAY because many a time I have given a remedy based on the M & E and then the physicals have looked after themselves.

The last case of meniere's I had was "cured" (?) with 3 doses of Cocculus 30 taken every hour during an attack. It hasn't returned since she took them about 4 weeks ago.

Hi Dave,
Thanks for your reply.
Yes, she's been advised about the stress and the sodium. However the sugar part is very interesting as she has hypoglycaemia. I noticed that sugar aggravated certain symptoms and that she had sugar cravings and a high sugar diet so I advised her to cut it out totally...we'll see if this helps..

Hi Ricky,
Thanks for your reply.Yes I tried Ars. Alb. for the M & E. It seemed to make her less anxious and more optimistic and relaxed...however the drop attacks increased afterwards which frightened her..I'm hoping it's only an aggravation.I'll try the Cocculus if the Chenop. doesn't help..

Kirsten, you may well have your answer! If the remedy made her feel better within herself, but the chief complaint got worse, that's pretty much a classic presentation of the correct remedy! It only means the potency chosen was too high, but, assuming you gave her a 200C, this aggravation hopefully will wear off and you may begin to see an improvement! Let us know.

Snoopy

Hi Snoopy,
I gave her 30C...I am still a student of homeopathy so am wary of using any other potencies yet....
I'll keep you posted as to her progress.

Dear Kirsten,

If the patient was aggravated on a 30C,
I'm glad to hear you didn't give her a 200!
Still, don't ruin the case by represcribing, wait and see what happens when this aggravation wears off. Hopefully, the improvement will begin. If it does, if she improves up to a point and then relapses, go down to a 6C three times a day, as this patient won't want to experience another aggravation. 6C's work just as well as the higher potencies, they just have to be repeated daily; also, the patient has the power to either speed up or slow down their progress by increasing or decreasing the frequency of the dose, so it gives them control over their health and it's less frightening for them.

Always remember that healing takes place from the inside out, and tell your patients that what they experience first after a remedy might have nothing to do with their chief complaint, but if their energy comes up and they feel tranquil, this is what we're looking for, it's a sign that the correct remedy has been chosen.

Snoopy

[This message has been edited by Snoopy (edited 31 March 2001).]

Dear Snoopy,
I followed your advice and she took 6C for two days before feeling very off balance again.She stopped taking it and now we're waiting to see what's going to happen next....
Kirsten