Meniere’s Disease

Abstract

It began innocently enough like a spring cold—pressure in my left ear, the blahs, and an occasional sniffle. My left ear gradually began to feel fuller, and I was constantly aware that I had a left ear. This annoyed me but was not really painful. It felt as though air were trapped in it or some water remained after swimming. I thought, “Eustacheitis. No problem, a little Benadryl.” But it didn’t get better, and two or three days later a cacophony of unpleasant noises began—ringing, buzzing, water flowing. My hearing began to fluctuate wildly and reminded me of the radio when I was a boy, as remote stations came in and out of range always interrupted by static. Then I began to be nauseated, dizzy, and depressed. One day I stood up, lost my balance, and fell to the left and slightly forward, breaking nothing but frightening the kitten who had just adopted me. Something was obviously amiss, perhaps seriously so. I had recovered from a mild Bell’s palsy a few months earlier, treated at home with aspirin and hot towels by my loyal Filipino internist, Dr. A., one of the few who makes house calls. Obviously this was not a good year for my cranial nerves. I was concerned enough to go through a differential diagnosis. I didn’t think a vascular problem likely and—being a pathologist—was left with the choice between a cerebellar tumor and an acoustic neuroma. Dr. A. suggested Meniere’s disease and advised that I see an otologist, “preferably a good one.” I made up my mind then and there that if I had an acoustic neuroma, the chisel and rongeur boys would get one shot at me, but that a cerebellar tumor would have to run its course.

Dr. William Sharpe is a pathologist in Manhattan who has concluded that most of what he can’t hear probably wasn’t worth hearing in the first place.