How to Meniere's Disease Natural Treatment

How to Treat Meniere's Disease Naturally

Meniere's Disease combines symptoms of hearing loss, intense dizziness and ringing in the ears, usually accompanied by a sensation of pressure there. The attacks come and go, but the frequency may increase as time goes on, and sufferers may actually be housebound by the disorder. Paradoxically, the symptoms may spontaneously disappear for periods of as long as six years.

Nutritional therapies for Meniere's disease have been scant, and responses erratic. Dr. Miles Atkinson, formerly at New York University, reported years ago that high doses of B-complex vitamins were helpful to some patients. Another long-ago report of some success with vitamin C and bioflavonoid therapy came from the Mayo Clinic. Another and more recent finding in the nutritional treatment of the disorder appears to be promising and is certainly simple - nothing more than a low-carbohydrate diet.

This diet is being recommended on the grounds that Meniere's sufferers have elevated levels of insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar. Dr. Bruce Proctor of Wayne State University found elevated insulin levels in three or four of his Meniere's patients, and he now assumes that every patient with the disorder has abnormally high insulin levels until tests prove otherwise. The high insulin is not the direct cause of the symptoms; rather, it is impaired circulation, 'possibly resulting from abnormal... insulin concentrations [which] may be the primary cause of Meniere's disease,' he notes.

Because there are periods in which Meniere's patients improve without treatment, the doctor does not label the low-carbohydrate treatment as a cure, preferring to call the results 'symptomatic' relief, at least until five to ten years of sustained improvement have been observed.

Bad eating habits, extra weight, elevated insulin levels, drinking, smoking and high cholesterol levels are among the factors that interact, in Dr. Proctor's opinion, to cause Meniere's disease.

(See also TINNITUS.)