menieresstrong

Hey guys! Sorry for not posting for a while. Everything else kinda got in the way... so, I wanted to take this chance to update you on what's been going on lately :) I've now been living with my hearing aid for about two weeks. The more days pass the more perks I'm noticing, so there's no way I would give it up anymore. However, I have been experiencing ear pain (most likely not because of the hearing aid), and it's stressing me out. My ears are so messed up, I feel like there's always something wrong with them. I have an appointment to see my audiologist in a couple of weeks, but I'll call her this week to see if I need to get another appointment with a doctor, too. I'll let you know what happens. School is also taking up a lot of my energy right now. My thesis alone gives me a headache. I'm getting more and more excited about graduation! I should graduate in May or June, depending on when I can hand in my thesis. The writing process is slo...

Last summer I went to get my hearing checked after a couple of years, and it turned out my left ear had gone worse. It had happened so gradually I hadn't even noticed. I had my doubts, but never really believed it until I saw my audiogram on paper. I've now lost the high pitched noises, like bird singing, and struggle to hear people in crowds. After the results last summer I went to see an ENT, and told him I need a hearing aid. He, at first, said I was a borderline case, and doubted whether I needed a hearing aid since my right ear was perfectly fine. But then he took a look at my previous audiograms and figured if my hearing continued to deteriorate at this speed, it's better to get a hearing aid sooner rather than later, and so he put me down for one. Since I wasn't an acute case, I needed to wait about six months to get to my actual hearing aid appointment. That appointment was on the last day of January. Since I still had an infection in both of my ears, we were ...

I consider myself to be very fortunate with my own condition at the moment. I rarely get vertigo attacks, I'd say once a year. I definitely don't take this for granted, and credit medication (Betaserc) and certain lifestyle changes for doing well. However, I do have triggers that make me feel worse. Please note, that by saying these factors trigger my Meniere's, I mean they temporarily make my symptoms worse, they do not necessarily cause an attack. Alcohol Consuming large amounts of alcohol is simply not an option for me anymore. I learned my lesson from my very first vertigo attack ever, which, to this day, is the worst I've ever felt in my entire life, and was caused by alcohol. After realizing that alcohol was a trigger for me, I gave it up for a whole year. I've never been a big drinker anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. After that year I started testing my limits, allowing myself a glass of wine every now and then. I now drink less than I did before I got...

How many of you are comfortable talking about your illnesses with other people? In Finland people seem to have this weird habit of listing everything that's wrong with them, and then we have to top other people's problems. Hahaha, I have more issues than you! I know, we're a weird people. I'd rather keep my mouth shut. I only tell people about my Meniere's disease if one or more of the following conditions are met: It's somehow relevant to the situation at hand I can offer information important to the other person because of my disease It somehow affects our interaction at the moment They ask It comes up naturally in a conversation, never forced  I'm not ashamed to have Meniere's disease, nor will I ever apologize for it. I can't help that I have it. But I'm not comfortable talking about it just because. I'm not telling you about my disease to get sympathy points from you, because frankly, I don't need them. I'm also no...

I have recently realized that I don't deal so well with major changes in my life. If I'm already stressed, even small changes give me major anxiety. For example, our family had three cars break down during one week in December. I did not take it too well :D My mom always tells me I have a tendency to see the worst in every situation. I'm working on that... Being negative and anxious takes everything out of me. I get exhausted in a matter of minutes, because of how consuming it is to be angry or sad about something I simply have no control over. Not being able to do anything about whatever it is that's bothering me just makes me more anxious. So what's the point? I don't want you to think of me as someone who's just plain telling you to stop feeling sad or anxious and start feeling happy. I have absolutely no credentials to do anything of the sort, and I think we all know that anyone who's saying they just stopped being negative and started being posi...

I had never heard of Meniere's disease before I found out I have it, so it wasn't really realistic for me to expect others to know what was going on with me. When I started telling people I have MD, the most common replies were: "Okayyy..?" "What's that?" "Neverheard" "A what disease?" "Ooh, what a cool name!" Yep. My chronic illness does have a cool name, I do agree. It's sad how Meniere's is so little known. My friends were interested in learning about it, but since my disease is pretty well under control and it doesn't have a direct affect on anyone besides myself, they tend to forget about it. They'll ask things like: "What was the name of that condition you have, again?" "You had some ear thing, right?" "Are your ears all better now?" I don't take it personally if someone I know forgets the name of my disease or if someone remembers the name but doesn...

My hearing has deteriorated so slowly that I never even realized it was happening. I knew it was happening, but as far as I'm concerned I hear just as well as I did five years ago. But... I really don't. I mean, I really  don't. Here's a picture of my very first audiogram back in 2012 when I'd never heard of Meniere's disease compared to an audiogram from July of 2016: The truth is, even after the latest audiogram I didn't feel as hard of hearing as I am on paper. My right ear being healthy naturally has a lot to do with why I feel that way, but still. I never noticed how bad my left ear had gotten. Every now and then I would pay attention to it and take advantage of certain aspects of my hearing loss, but I never thought about it any further. You know what I mean? I'm getting a hearing aid for my left ear sometime this spring, which ought to make things a bit easier for me, since I don't do so well in crowds, classrooms, and other noisy e...