Huey Lewis diagnosed with Meniere's disease

I've had a mild to moderate case of Meniere's for the past 20+ years, what it does is gives you some weird inner ear ringing/noise, and dizziness due to affecting the balance canals in your ear.  but I was and am still able to listen to music no problem.  if it gets really bad though, a person can lose their balance to the point they can't walk, or fall down.  what happens is, your eyes take over for balance by sight perception.  if a person with Meniere's tries to walk a straight line with their eyes closed, they stagger and almost fall over.   a person with good inner ear balance can still walk a straight line with their eyes closed.

I’ve suffered with Menieres for over 15 years.  It is not genetic. It’s caused by a malfunction of the body’s immmunodeficiency system that attacks the inner ear.  Symptoms include tinnitus, vertigo, nausea, loss of hearing, and can eventually result in deafness in some cases.  A fellow sufferer eventually had his inner removed because of non stop vertigo.  Treatments vary and results vary and it can remit but it never goes away.  At its worst, in my case, unexpected violent onsets included vomiting, falling down, and horrible headaches.  Really nasty stuff.  Genetic? No.  I’ve seen the best doctors and it confuses them all, like many immunodeficiency diseases.  Bonus!  I have another immunodeficiency disease:  alopecia totalis!  Docs can’t figure that one out either!  

One of more the interesting treatments I received was an injection of steroids directly into my inner ear through the eardrum.  Needle was human hair thin, about 4” long.  Doc said, ‘don’t move!’  No problem doc! 

I have had Meniere's for 17 years, it's a terrible syndrome but doesn't necessarily mean you lose your hearing. Vertigo is the telltale sign of this horrible disease with no cure or medication to relieve symptoms.

Seeing how many people have posted here, I wonder if there is any link between the volume at which one listens to music, or the frequencies that good audio might reproduce better than run of the mill equipment. That would truly be ironic -- higher quality audio causing low end frequency loss and Meniere’s . . .

I’ve had Meniere’s Disease for 9 years. First year, every 3 months or so I had intermittent bout of horrible vertigo where, within 15 minutes of first symptoms, I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand or walk, and would then vomit until I managed to pass out. Moved from San Diego to Miami year 2 and it stopped for 7 years. Last year, tinnitus started, and the vertigo attacks again. Now it has stopped again for the last 6 months, but the tinnitus in my left year remains and I have low frequency loss (common in Menieres) and high frequency loss in that ear. Ironic that someone that gets a lot of pleasure from high quality audio has now lost some hearing in one ear. Could be worse. Could be both ears, I guess. Sometimes I can’t tell whether the recording sucks or its just my left ear sucking! :)

@zebra9, I had acupuncture for the last year. I also reduced my salt intake and alcohol intake. Don’t know if those were factors. However, now, if I feel the slightest bit lightheaded, I take promethazine, which seems to stop anything before the whole wonderful experience starts.