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Meniere's Syndrome and Tinnitus

Tinnitus & Meniere's
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It shook me deeply to see my father have to crawl to the bathroom to vomit. Dad was only in his mid 50s and was already using a cane to stand up, when he could stand at all. He had a really bad case of Meniere’s Syndrome, a miserable collection of symptoms including recurrent ringing in the ears, dizziness, and nausea. Perhaps it proved to be a defining moment for me. Seeing your father reduced to helplessness is enough to make anyone want to know more about getting well. When you look this one up, the treatments you come across, whether pharmaceutical or surgical, are primarily aimed at the symptoms, because the cause of the illness is pretty much unknown.

Enter natural healing.

By trial and error, I have found that there are some drugless, scalpel-less options for Meniere’s. While the solutions shed some light on the cause, I am interested in results. I have seen success with what follows:

CHIROPRACTIC or osteopathic adjustment of the upper cervical (neck) vertebrae is worth trying, first thing.

Some 20 years ago, I met a young man so dizzy that he could not read or even watch TV without having to lie down. Meniere’s, aptly described in the Merck Manual as “prostrating,” certainly is capable of flooring a person. Such was the case with Lowell, a college dropout. He had a gentle but persistent series of manipulations which restored his life. He was able to read again, to return to school, and live again. How so? The practitioner discovered that his two top neck vertebrae, the atlas and the axis, were practically at right angles to each other, and to the skull on top of that. This seemingly impossible state of affairs turned out to be due to a summer job Lowell had a few years before: he was a sparring partner for boxers in training. He had almost literally had had his block knocked off.

The closest to such an experience my father had was when he was knocked out of the box, figuratively speaking, while in training to become a New York Yankee pitcher. Well, he did not quite make it to the farm team. Still, my Pop struck out Bobby Brown, the guy who would become the President of the American League three times in one game.

But I digress, as usual.

Pa refused to go to a chiropractor until his Meniere’s was so bad he could not take it any more. He’d been on various ineffective medications from various ineffective physicians, none of whom gave chiropractic the time of day. But I managed to get him to a D.C. for a visit or two.

Pa said it did not help one bit.

He then began taking vitamins, notable the B-complex in fairly high doses. Pa had no praise for that, either.

But over a period of months, his specialist-diagnosed Meniere’s went away.

I had persistent suspicions that the natural approach had helped him.

NIACIN
Since then, I have come across references showing that niacin (vitamin B-3) was used for Meniere's syndrome since the 1940s. In long term therapy, improvement has been obtained with only 150-250 mg daily (Bicknell and Prescott, The Vitamins in Medicine, 3rd ed., p 379). This may explain why Pa’s improvement was so gradual, yet in the end, profound.

VITAMIN B-12
I think that Meniere’s syndrome, and perhaps a number of other difficult-to-tag neurological problems, could be a manifestation of untreated, long-term B-12 deficiency. I discuss this, and what to do about it, at http://www.doctoryourself.com/nasal.html

ASPARTAME
My Dad never drank anything with aspartame in it. However, the late Lendon H. Smith's newsletter "The Facts" (October 1991) mentions that aspartame (“Nutrasweet”) may “trigger or mimic” a Meniere’s attack. Dr. Smith specifically lists nausea, vertigo, hearing loss and tinnitus as symptoms that say, Stop using aspartame.

OTHER NUTRITIONAL FACTORS:
A low-fat, low-sodium, no alcohol and especially NO SUGAR diet may help a wide variety of illnesses. Meniere’s seems to be closely connected with chronic low blood sugar, sometimes diagnosed as hypoglycemia or Type II diabetes). Caffeine may aggravate the condition, as might manganese deficiency. (Balch and Balch, Prescription for Nutritional Healing, p 239-240)

Zinc supplementation and moderate additional amounts of B-6 (pyridoxine) are also worth a several-month therapeutic trial. (Werbach, M. Textbook of Nutritional Medicine, p 475-482)

HOMEOPATHIC KALI PHOS.
For uncomplicated simple ringing in the ears, dizziness or nausea, a 6X potency of Kali Phos. may be surprisingly helpful. I have personally used this remedy for 30 years, as I have a motion sickness problem that my flight instructor has insisted cannot be matched. If it were not for Kali Phos, I think I would have thrown up right in the FAA examiner’s lap at Batavia airport.

For what it’s worth, these can’t-hurt-to-try-them approaches may help someone you love stop crawling, and start living.

My Dad, fully recovered from Meniere’s, would walk four miles a day for the rest of his life. His dizziness and nausea were gone for good. His sense of humor was not, however. If you ever asked my father how his hearing was, he’d invariably shout back at you:

“WHAT?”

But he did it smiling, and standing up straight.

Andrew Saul is the author of the books FIRE YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy (reader reviews at http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html ) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works. (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html )

Andrew W. Saul

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