Symptoms
Symptoms of Meniere’s disease include vertigo, tinnitus, hearing loss and a feeling of fullness in the affected ear.
Though Meniere’s disease may occur at any age, it is often seen in adults between 20 and 50 years. The disease progresses through 3 stages:
Stage I may last between 20 minutes to an hour. In this stage, the patient experiences vertigo as the main symptom. Vertigo is a type of dizziness where the patient feels himself or his surroundings spinning in the absence of any movement. Nausea and vomiting or retching accompany it. The patient’s eyes move involuntarily during the attacks. He may turn pale and start sweating. He also starts hearing sounds in the absence of any sound. He may fall without losing consciousness. The episodes recur and occur spontaneously, though stress or other factors may trigger them. The patient is completely normal between attacks. Before this stage, he may experience aura, fullness or pressure on the side of the head.
As the disease progresses to Stage II, the vertigo tends to increase in severity and then becomes milder. The patient develops some hearing loss that is usually at lower pitches and fluctuates initially.
In the third stage, the episodes of vertigo may disappear but the patient experiences hearing loss sometimes in both ears.
