Medical Management Meniere's Disease

Medical Management

	No smoking: Patients must abstain from tobacco totally. Nicotine is toxic to the inner ear and continued use may render all treatments listed below ineffective.
	Low sodium (low salt) diet: To decrease the amount of fluid in the inner ear, patients are placed on a 2 gm sodium diet.
	Diuretic: A diuretic is advisable to decrease the body's sodium and water content, but some diuretics decrease potassium excessively. To prevent this, patients should eat potassium-rich foods every day. Good sources of potassium are salt substitutes, orange juice, bananas, dried fruits, raisins, cantaloupe, nectarines, winter squash, navy beans, potatoes, and salt-free peanuts. Occasionally, severe weakness and "flu-like" symptoms may be caused by potassium loss. It is important for patients with these symptoms to be checked promptly by a physician.
	No caffeine: Caffeine products (for example, coffee, tea, cola beverages, and chocolate) should not be used by patients with Meniere's disease. Numerous patients have reported attacks within minutes of caffeine use. Decaffeinated products are fine.
	Stress avoidance: Episodes of Meniere's disease frequently occur at times of severe stress and fatigue or immediately following such episodes. Patients should try to avoid situations that produce undue stress. At times, professional counseling is necessary to help patients with stressful problems.
	Watch for food allergy: In certain patients, episodes of Meniere's disease are caused by specific foods (for example, chocolate, red wine, wheat, beer, shellfish, and milk products). While this is uncommon, it is desirable to keep a list of foods ingested at the meal preceding each episode to see if any particular food is consistently present.
	Innovar Therapy: Some patients with frequent vertigo attacks are helped by an intravenous injection of Innovar. This is a potent anesthetic agent and must be given in hospital as a one-time treatment.