Consulting the experts...

Just for the heck of it, I recently sent e-mails to two of the top doctors in the country for Meniere's Disease, Dr. Gacek and Dr. Hain.  I gave them a very brief description of my symptoms and history and asked for their opinions on what to do next.

Dr. Gacek of UMass suggested that my balance problems were the result of my good ear not being able to compensate for my bad ear and that I should go ahead and destroy the remaining function of the balance nerve in my bad ear through gentamicin injections or get a labyrinthectomy.  I am definitely not doing the laby.  But the gent injections have me intrigued.  I don't think my doctor will do them though.  He does not want to do anything destructive in case I do go bilateral.  He says he's seen too many patients either have the injections, or VNS, then go bilateral and end up worse off than they were.  I kind of agree with him but at the same time, I think to myself ...isn't my balance nerve being destroyed anyway by this damned disease?  I go back to see him tomorrow and will ask him again what his opinion is on this.  I also want to ask him what he thinks about "burnout."  Is it real? 

Dr. Hain suggested I pursue the MAV medications and exhaust all those possibilities before I do anything destructive.  Interesting to get two different opinions.  My doctor will likely have a third, completely different opinion.  I have asked him about the possibility of MAV before and he really doesn't think I have that but I may bring it up again tomorrow anyway.

I'm still struggling with dizziness, nausea, and balance issues.  Still trying to avoid MSG but that will take more time before I know if it works or not.  I'm so frustrated and things are about to get a lot more stressful at my school.  I'm still out of work, but my long-term substitute has to leave for at least 2 weeks, if not more.  Which means my boss is going to expect me to pick up a lot of slack.  This will not make my doctor happy at all.  He's already upset that I'm doing as much as I am.  I'm so torn.  Don't know what to do about all that.  Stress is probably my number one aggravator as far as this disease goes.