I was recently diagnosed as having Ménière's disease in both ears. So far, I have difficulties hearing very high pitches in one ear, and very low pitches in another ear. My ENT specialist is going to do hearing tests every six months in order to monitor the situation, and they put me on a diuretic to reduce fluids. Apparently, it isn't something that can be cured, just treating symptoms.

Except for when I actually have the attacks, I don't notice a problem. However, I am concerned about the possibility of hearing loss over time. Do any other musicians/teachers out there have this problem, and if so, how have you dealt with it?

About 20 yrs. ago, out of the blue, I had
a violent meniere's attack when I got
up in the morning. The room was spinning
and I could not even stand--I eventually
crawled out of bed, used the wall to
pull myself into a standing
position, and eventually made it to work
that day. I had never had anything like that
before, and it was frightening; I had no
idea what had happened.

In spite of it, I went on with my life
as usual for a couple of months, plagued
by continual attacks, although none
as violent as the initial one--I had
learned to shift my body enough to
offset the vertigo to a large extent.
Curiously, I didn't go to the doctor
until a couple of months later, when
a particularly severe attack forced me
to finally go to a hospital emergency
room late at night. The emergency room
doctor was rather vague about the cause,
giving me some anti-vertigo medicine
(the impression was that he had
seen so many cases before that from
sheer tedium he was unwilling to
go into the standard explanation of it),
and the doctor I saw in a follow-up
appointment was not much more helpful,
saying something about inner ear infection.

This condition plagued me for about 15 yrs.
after that initial attack. I learned to
shift my body to offset the vertigo and
avoid positions that seemed to aggravate
the condition. Today it has disappeared
except for very infrequent episodes
which are insignificant--I've learned
how to hold myself so that I offset the
vertigo.

Since the doctors were so vague about the
condition, I had to essentially cure myself.
What I concluded is that it is caused by
a combination of an inner ear infection,
and a defect in posture, or skeletal
misalignment, which causes a nerve or
blood vessel to be pinched off. The
curious thing is that an inner ear infection
alone is not going to cause it--in our
germ-ridden modern society we are
constantly being infected by germs
which make it into our ear (thus, I
believe that everyone has a low-grade
inner ear infection almost constantly).
What is apparently needed to trigger it is
a skeletal misalignment that causes a nerve or
blood vessel, connected in some way to
the ear, to be pinched in some unusual
way such that the combination of
infection and nerve or blood vessel
trauma causes the condition. The
areas of the body that contain the
nerves or blood vessels related to this
seem to be around the eyes (watchmakers
seem to be especially susceptible to
the condition), where the jawbone attaches
to the skull (there is a mass of nerves
at this junction that can be chafed by
misalignment of the jaw caused by
tooth imperfections, especially from bad
orthodontic or dental work), and in
the spine from about the center point of
it to where it attaches to the skull
(when we're young and supple, we can get
away with all kinds of spinal twists, but
as we get older we are no longer as flexible
and spinal misalignments become more telling).

Thus, the cure involves mainly how you
hold yourself (since inner ear infection
seems to be something that is always
there to some extent). I've found that
I need to hold myself so that there
is no "kinking" in the spine from the
center of it on up to the head, where
the nerves in the jaw joint and around
the eyes also come into play as sensitive
areas. So: upper spine, jaw joint, and eyes,
are areas that you need to be watchful
of. Hold yourself so that there are
no "kinks" in these critical areas.

You can get more information about Meniere's Disease from the American Tinnitus Association .