I thought treatment was going well, but…
I’ve been in the hospital since Saturday. I started treatment with medication to suppress dizziness and nausea along with steroids, and my symptoms really seemed to settle down over the weekend. On the other hand, probably due to the side effects of the steroids, I didn’t sleep well on Saturday night, and after spending almost all of Sunday night awake, I woke up this morning to that familiar clogged feeling and tinnitus in my bad ear. Since it was a weekday and I had a consultation scheduled, I went straight in for a hearing test.
A slight turn for the worse
The results of several tests from last Tuesday, including the state of my otoliths, didn’t show any major issues. However, because my self-reported symptoms are fluctuating and the hearing test results actually showed a slight decline, we decided to check for Meniere’s disease as part of the process of ruling out cases involving symptom variability.
Testing for Meniere’s disease
I don’t know all the details, but it seems Meniere’s is affected by fluid buildup in the inner ear. The test checks if hearing improves after removing that fluid with a diuretic via an IV drip. Specifically, they administered something called Glyceol 200 through a 30-minute IV, then re-tested my hearing 30 minutes after that.
The results showed no effect on my good ear. In my bad ear, while some frequencies improved slightly, others actually got worse. It wasn’t a significant enough improvement to confirm it was Meniere’s, so we decided to continue with the steroid treatment to try and restore my hearing.
Feeling terrible after the test
Whether it was the effect of the Glyceol IV or just moving my head around during the test itself, I started feeling dizzy and lightheaded again. Before long, I couldn’t even stand up. They gave me an injection of Travelmin for the nausea and an IV for the dizziness, but I ended up spending 3 or 4 hours in a daze, vomiting repeatedly…
I’m usually the type who can sleep just about anywhere, so the fact that my sleep is being disrupted is really weighing on me. I was prescribed some sleeping pills today, so I’m hoping to get some proper rest. I just want my physical condition to start improving, even if it’s just a little bit at a time.
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