The ear collects sound and keeps you balanced. Meniere's disease is what happens when fluid pressure in the inner ear throws both jobs off.
Three parts
The outer ear is the part you see and the canal. It gathers sound and carries it to the eardrum. The middle ear is the air space behind the drum, with three small bones that pass vibration inward. The inner ear is hard bone lined with membrane. It holds the cochlea, which turns vibration into hearing signals, and the semicircular canals, which sense head movement. Both messages travel on the hearing and balance nerve to the brain.
Those canals are filled with a fluid called endolymph. Sound moves the fluid in the cochlea. Head movement moves the fluid in the balance canals. A small structure, the endolymphatic sac, keeps the amount of fluid steady.
What Meniere's changes
In Meniere's disease, too much endolymph backs up. That backup is called endolymphatic hydrops. The canals swell, pressure rises, and the signals distort. Pressure in the hearing canal blocks sound or sends extra signals, which you hear as ringing or buzzing. Pressure in the balance canals makes the brain think you are spinning. That is vertigo. A spell can include fullness in the ear, hearing that drops and may partly return, tinnitus, and vertigo that comes and goes.
Salt and medicine
Salt holds fluid in the body. Because this disease is a fluid problem in the ear, a lower-salt diet is a common first step. Your doctor sets the daily sodium limit. It is not the same number for everyone. In the kitchen, that usually means not adding salt, reading labels on packaged food, and going easy on foods packed in brine, smoke, or salty sauces. Eating out, ask for food cooked without added salt.
No medicine cures Meniere's. A diuretic may be used to reduce fluid, sometimes with a potassium supplement because those drugs can lower potassium. Other medicines are for the spell itself: something for the spinning, something for nausea, and sometimes a sedative so you can sleep through it. Because vomiting is common, a suppository is sometimes easier than a pill. Steroids, antihistamines, and other drugs are used in selected cases. The mix is individual.
When spells stay severe
If diet and medicine do not control severe spells, procedures that reduce balance signals from the affected ear are sometimes discussed. Options include taking pressure off the endolymphatic sac, cutting the balance nerve so spinning signals stop, or, when hearing in that ear is already largely gone, removing the balance canals. An antibiotic placed in the ear can also quiet the balance organ. These steps can affect hearing and balance. They are not first-line care, and the risks belong in a visit, not in a handout.
Fluctuating hearing and vertigo are part of our ear, nose, and throat care. Day-to-day balance work is in dizziness and vertigo. The ringing itself is in tinnitus.
