RLR
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Okay, I've read your posting and will certainly agree that without formal evaluation, I would be operating in the blind so to speak.
As I recall, your symptoms fit the classic pattern of Meniere's Disease and can vary quite a bit between patients. Meniere’s Disease most frequently affects men and women equally and is often diagnosed between the ages of 30 to 50, although there have been documented cases where the patient was as young as 10. Meniere’s Disease can affect one ear (unilateral) or both (bilateral).
The three major symptoms of Meniere’s Disease are tinnitus (ringing or other noises in the ears), hearing loss and vertigo. Other common symptoms can include imbalance, sometimes slurred or incoherent speech, panic attacks, generalized fear in social situations, nystagmus (which is the twitching of the eyes in a subjective manner), as well as something called Tumarkin Episodes (also known as “drop attacks”-where the person drops to the ground and may lose consciousness), Micropsia or seeing small moving objects that do not actually exist and tingling or twitching or pain in the affected ear(s). Trigeminal neurlagia and 3rd nerve palsy have also seen on some occasions, which would support the ptosis of the right eye, numbness, tingling, etc.
Cognitive and memory disturbances, commonly known as “brain fog”, affects short-term memory and other facets of cognitive functioning including the ability to form complete sentences while speaking, thinking in a linear fashion and being able to foresee consequences of one’s actions or lack of action. These make performing day-to-day and work requirements a matter of concern to the patient, as they might not be aware of a problem until it has occurred. Many patients with Meniere’s Disease are unable to work due to the severity of their symptoms.
Medication such as diuretics to deplete the amount of fluid in the inner ears and benzodiazapines such as Valium and Klonopin are given to sedate the vestibular nerve. Antivert and Dramamine are often prescribed. There are various surgical options such as Vestibular Nerve Severance and Endolymphatic Sac Decompression with Shunt Placement. These surgeries have varying effects and new options such as injecting antibiotics directly in to the inner ear are now being used, also with varying degrees of success.
As for the weakness in your right arm, visible evidence of mild atrophy of the muscle tissues or other signs might elicit your physician to perform an EMG, which would provide evidence of problems there. I'd be surprised if the test is positive, but it would rule out certain conditions.
Without a direct work-up, I am really unable to provide much else. My opinion would be Meniere's at this point. I think it would be pointless for me to simply throw in a wild guess otherwise and some diagnostic information would be necessary at the very least for me to give opinions about other possibilities. Once you visit with your neurologist, please feel free to discuss the results of any tests and I can offer you more information at that point. Regardless, this does not appear life-threatening in my opinion and if you're concerned about things like tumors, then you can relax a bit. The constellation of symptoms in those cases is a bit different than what you're experiencing. You'll be fine.
Best regards and Good Health
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