The Beginning
It was a beautiful early October day in 2003. I went to bed that night feeling like I had the beginnings of a cold. Nothing drastic, just that first “uh-oh” feeling that sometimes becomes a cold and other times not. When I woke up the next day, my right ear felt completely plugged. I couldn’t clear it by holding my nose and blowing and could not use that ear to talk on the phone. Not only that, for the first time in my life I had a persistent, loud ringing in the ear and my balance was off. I wasn’t bumping into walls, or experiencing vertigo, but I felt strangely unsure of my footing. I should also mention that I was an actively competing triathlete at the time and in pretty good overall physical health. At that point in my life I was 52 and I had been operating under the assumption that if you ate right, exercised vigorously and got enough sleep you had nothing to worry about. Little did I know.
For the first couple of days, I started off assuming I had nothing more than an “ear cold” that would soon pass. But then after a few days of no improvement, I started searching the internet and became increasingly alarmed that I had suffered a Sudden Hearing Loss (SHL) condition. Several articles I read recommended immediate injection of a steroid directly into the affected ear. The articles stressed that it was critical to get treatment within a relatively short period (like 48 hours, as I recall). Even though about four days had now passed, I made an appointment with a local Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist. I relayed my findings to her and she agreed to try the steroid injections.
The injections were performed via a needle inserted through the ear drum. Not very pleasant. I don’t recall how many injections were done, but it was at least several over a few days period. The injections had no perceivable effect. By now about a week-plus had passed and I was definitely no better. In fact, I had a perpetual feeling of major fullness in the ear and I was still unable to use the right ear for talking on the phone. I had a terrible time understanding people talking to me in a group. When you go from good hearing to half hearing, it is a definite mental adjustment. I was quite worried that I had indeed suffered a permanent loss of hearing in my right ear. I remember having thoughts around that time that if this were to happen to the other ear, I would be totally deaf. Not very uplifting thinking.
After administering several steroid injections, the ENT prescribed oral prednisone at a fairly high dosage as a follow-on treatment. I don’t recall the dosage exactly, but it was quite high. I ended up feeling “wired” and had difficulty sleeping.
My recollection of the timing is somewhat fuzzy, but several weeks after my initial SHL experience I had my introduction to vertigo. I woke up one night and I literally thought I was dying. The room was spinning in the most frightening manner. I staggered out of bed and immediately crashed to the floor. Somehow I crawled on all fours to the bathroom and violently threw up several times. I had never experienced vertigo before and I had not the slightest idea what was happening to me. My girlfriend/future wife was with me that night and she was able to get me into the car to drive me to the emergency room. I was administered an anti-histamine, kept there for several hours, then released. By now the vertigo had passed. I returned home, went back to sleep and woke up feeling wiped out, but basically OK. Welcome to Meniere’s Disease.
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