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Are the symptoms of Meniere’s Disease connected to the Cervical Spine?

Chiropractics And Meniere’s Disease

Meniere's Disease and Cervical Spine - diagram showing upper cervical misalignment

The link between Meniere’s symptoms, particularly vertigo and neck irregularities may be one of the several possible causes of Meniere’s Disease and you would be wise to have your neck and spine checked if you are a sufferer. You can also will find more information related to Chiropractics and Meniere’s Disease & vestibular problems elsewhere on Meniere’s Help.

Dietary Changes & Chiropractics to beat Meniere’s Disease: Testamonial

This lady combined supplementation and diet changes for a yeast overgrowth with Chiropractics to free herself of Meniere’s Disease symptoms. Below is her a summary of her communication with Meniere’s Help:

Hi Michael,

Sorry for the delay in replying to you.

I am doing much better these days. I was initially taking the supplements for over 4 months without real improvement and not being able to pinpoint any factors which was my trigger. Someone told me about a doctor in Belfast who no longer worked for the NHS as he took a more alternative therapy view on health, a more holistic approach. I attended his clinic about 3 months ago and after a consultation and some investigations he diagnosed my problem as candida overgrowth. To deal with the bacteria overgrowth and he put me on a strict diet (no yeast, no dairy, no sugar). He also had me attend a chiropractor as he felt my neck had a lot of tension in it which could be triggering some of my dizziness/vertigo. Since I have been on this diet & the supplements and finished course of chiropractor treatment i am feeling much better, more energy, no vertigo in 2 months, sleeping better….just feeling like my old self again! The only thing that still bothers me at times is the tinnitus but i can live with that!

Thanks once again for the help and support i received from yourself and Karin

Joanne

Used with permission.
Click here to learn how to manage your Meniere’s symptoms

Note: Candida is a yeast infection that can occur in several parts of the body including the stomach (often the root), the genital area, the mouth and the EAR. Natural things that combat candida are ginger, garlic, grapefruit and probiotics. Some things that can cause or encourage candida growth are sweet foods, alcohol (especially beer) and ani-biotics. It is generally advised these day that after a course of anti-biotics you should use probiotics or Probiotic yogurts are plentiful in the shops these days.

Ear candling is said to be a good treatment for candida.

NCR – Neurocranial Restructuring

We had one gentleman this week who combined supplementation and NCR and was so happy that he requested that we put a video or some info on the website, “even if helps just one person” he said.

Below is a video about a unique Neurocranial Restructuring (NCR) method. You may find it worth investigating, especially if you have sinus trouble or persistent slight tinnitus that won’t go away despite living otherwise free of all the other symptoms through diet and supplementation.

While it is true many people are living symptom free from strengthening their immune system with the supplements and this allows our own immune system to take care of the inflammation causing the build of fluid in the inner ear. It is not a cure. If you have Meniere’s as a result of skeletal muscular problems in the back and neck area etc then NCR (seen in this video) may actually help tackle your root cause.

Around the 6 minute mark there is a patient who had Meniere’s Disease and Vertigo. In this video it also mentions TMJ, Migraines, Neck pain, Sinuses, Whiplash, Fibromalgia, Back pain, Tinnitus, Fatigue, Dizziness, and Core posture. All of these are claimed to have a correlation with “Meniere’s Disease” from different sources.

Email us at meniereshelp@gmail.com

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How Chiropractic Rehabilitation May Help Your Meniere’s Symptoms

We have posted a few times on Chiropractics, and how it may help your Meniere’s disease symptoms. Here is a detailed report on this topic. It may be worth visiting a reputable Chiropractor and have them check your spine and neck, to see if your symptoms are cervical in origin.

* Note: Your Chiropractor should be cervical certified *

In the article below (click the link at the bottom for the full article) The doctor states: “The dysfunction causing vertigo concerns the total balance function and not the inner ear function alone.” The eyes are part of that system and if you have Meniere’s, you will notice how it often feels the state of the eyes can trigger an attack. Simply watching TV, observing a moving object, strain from staring at computer screens etc.

Karel Lewit, MD, one of the foremost authorities in the world on locomotor system dysfunction and its effects on equilibrium, states: “It is important to stress that a cervical factor may be present in all forms of vertigo and dizziness … in no field is manipulation more effective than in the treatment of disturbances of equilibrium.”1
Because the entire locomotor as well as vestibular and visual system is involved in the regulation of equilibrium, all factors must be considered in the patient who suffers from disorders of this system. Michel Norre, noted authority in the field of vertigo and disequilibrium, states: “The dysfunction causing vertigo concerns the total balance function and not the inner ear function alone.”2 The types of dizziness that are generally most likely to fall into the chiropractic rehabilitative realm are disequilibrium and vertigo.

Disequilibrium is most often cervical in origin, as has been demonstrated by Hulse.3 It has been shown in several studies that the cervical spine plays a very strong role in the body’s regulation of equilibrium sense.4-7 In fact, Guyton7 states that the cervical spine plays the most important role in this regulation. One test that can be useful in determining whether a complaint of disequilibrium is of cervical origin is Hautant’s test.1 Have the patient sitting, preferably in a chair with back support to prevent falling, and holding their arms straight out in front of them, palms down. Have them close their eyes and observe for drifting of their arms to one side. Repeat this with the head turned to the right and to the left and often the deviation will become more marked, particularly when the head is turned to the direction of cervical joint dysfunction. This tests the ability of the cervical spine to appropriately regulate muscle tone in the extremities by properly eliciting the tonic neck reflexes.

Dr Burcon’s work with Meniere’s Disease and Cervical Spine

World Renowned Chiropractic doctor and international speaker on the subject of Meniere’s and Cervical problems Mike Burcon published a peer reviewed paper in 2010 after performing a study on 139 patients.

The paper “Upper Cervical Specific Protocol and Results for 139 Patients with Medically Diagnosed Menieres Disease” is well worth a read.

Here is a short extract from the paper’s abstract:

The cause of Menieres disease is unknown; the pathophysiology is poorly understood, and the treatment empirical. One theory is that the most common cause of Menieres disease is a structural problem, i.e., an upper cervical subluxation complex that is irritating the origin of CNVIII and partially blocking the Eustachian tube. The objective is to demonstrate the effectiveness of cervical specific chiropractic management with one hundred and thirty nine patients medically diagnosed with Menieres disease.

Results:

One hundred thirty out of one hundred and thirty nine patients had inferior and posterior listings with laterality on the opposite side of their involved ear. After one or two specific cervical adjustments, one hundred and thirty six out of the one hundred and thirty nine patients presented with balanced legs and an absence or dramatic reduction of symptoms, especially vertigo. After two years, on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 representing the absence of the symptom and 10 being the worst imaginable, vertigo was lowered from an average of 8.5 to 1.4.

Conclusion:

Prior to the onset of symptoms, all one hundred and thirty nine cases suffered cervical traumas; most from automobile accidents, resulting in previously undiagnosed whiplash injuries. It is unlikely coincidental that one
hundred and thirty out of one hundred and thirty nine consecutive Menieres patients would present with a posterior and inferior atlas listing with laterality on the opposite side of the involved ear. More research on Menieres and chiropractic is needed.

Dr Burcon has been very helpful with information and communication with Menieres-Help.Com and has even been kind enough to treat sufferers who have contacted us.

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Help other Meniere’s sufferers. Tell us your thoughts or experiences with chiropractics, the neck or back and Meniere’s in the comment box below or email Mike at meniereshelp@gmail.com

Meniere’s disease research in Australia

“Aussie bids to crack middle ear disease. Meniere’s Laboratory in Sydney Paves The Way for Research”

From http://news.ninemsn.com.au

It’s time to pull the mysterious “dizzy terror” which afflicts at least 50,000 Australians out of medical science’s too hard basket, an Australian researcher says.

Dr Daniel Brown, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Sydney’s Medical School, heads the world’s first research facility solely dedicated to finding the cause and a cure for Meniere’s Disease.

The debilitating condition of the middle ear has been baffling scientists since it was first described by French physician Prosper Meniere in 1861.

Its cause remains unclear – genetic, hormonal or even a viral trigger for fluid or pressure fluctuations within the body’s balancing mechanism, the middle ear – but its impact on sufferers is well known.

They experience sudden and recurring bouts of dizziness, each lasting up to 24 hours and accompanied by nausea and vomiting, with the first of these attacks usually occurring in a person’s mid-30s.

“Some people will get these attacks and will immediately drop to the floor and other people they can sense it is coming on,” Dr Brown, who heads the Meniere’s Laboratory, told AAP this week.

“Imagine being so dizzy that you have to call an ambulance and stay in hospital for a couple of days.

“… Or if you’ve ever had a big night out and then the room is spinning and you just want it to stop – well times that by 10.”

When a sufferer experienced one of these attacks, which they dub the “dizzy terror”, in public they may be dismissed by onlookers as simply being drunk.

Dr Brown said these attacks often occurred in clusters. Stress could bring on an attack as could a diet high in salt while sufferers would also experience worsening hearing and balance problems over time.

It was also common for sufferers to report feeling increasingly sensitive to certain sounds and changes in atmospheric pressure.

Sufferers could feel uncomfortable driving in a car with the window down while routine sounds could also have a “distressing” effect.

“When you have a complex hearing loss, your brain reorganises itself,” Dr Brown said.

“They’ll flush the toilet and say that sounds awful … it can have a high-pitched wheeling. It won’t sound right.”

Dr Brown said this all added up to a debilitating condition that was enough to force some sufferers out of the workforce.

While 50,000 Australians were diagnosed with the condition the total number of sufferers could be triple this as the condition was often confused for migraine or vertigo.

Diagnosing was also no guarantee of fixing the problem, Dr Brown said, as conventional treatments alleviate the dizzy spell but do not halt the decline in hearing or balance.

“Clinicians all know about it, and know of Meniere’s sufferers, but because they can’t really help them it gets put to the side,” Dr Brown said.

“People have been studying it for the last 100 years and they drop it because they think that’s old Meniere’s Disease, no one is ever going to come up with an explanation for that or come up with a cure.

“It’s done with – we can’t work it out.”

The Meniere’s Laboratory was established last year as the culmination of about eight years of fundraising by the Meniere’s Research Fund, a group formed by Australian sufferers.

Dr Brown’s work is now focused on trying to find an improved diagnostic test for identifying excess fluid in the ear and determining the effects of the resultant build-up of pressure.

Recent studies overseas had made some headway in understanding what a sufferer experienced at the height of a dizzy attack, he said, including a spike in sensitivity for the middle ear without temporary deafness.

Dr Brown said there was a growing global momentum behind the research effort, with the aim of pushing treatment to the next step.

“The you-beaut treatment would stop the attack and prevent the degeneration of hearing and balance,” he said.

“.. And that would be a god-send for these people, allowing them to get back on with their normal lives.

“These people are distraught with the fear of when one of these attacks is going to come on.”

You can see the whole article here: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/1068824/aussie-bids-to-crack-middle-ear-disease

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