In extreme cases, surgery to cut the vestibular nerve or remove the vestibular part of inner ear solves the problem, but at the cost of major surgery and a chance or certainty of hearing loss. Endolymphatic sac surgery was offered by many centers, but results have been inconsistent. Many patients with Ménière’s disease are treated with dietary changes and diuretics to eliminate excess fluid, but that therapy doesn’t work for all patients. As of today, no one knows why people with Ménière’s disease accumulate fluid in the inner ear, but the effects are clear: fluctuating hearing loss, lack of balance and periods of terrible vertigo.

Our lab has made great strides in improving the treatment of another balance disorder known as Ménière’s disease, which affects as many as 5,000,000 people worldwide. Then, we took our findings a step further and established a treatment for patients who suffer from the condition. We named the condition superior canal dehiscence syndrome (a “dehiscence” is a hole). After assembling a range of clues, we determined that the condition, which involves a tear in the uppermost canal of the vestibule of the inner ear, occurs because the bony surface of the canal never grew to proper thickness during development. One of the early achievements of our lab was defining a particular balance disorder that had never been described before, a discovery that took place in 1995. Until recently, these complaints were often considered psychosomatic. Their hearing for internal noises (like a heartbeat and the grating of knee joints) is much better than normal. Some patients note a strange set of symptoms: Loud noises cause them to suffer sudden vertigo and blurred vision. Our Publications SUPERIOR CANAL DEHISCENCE SYNDROME

Vertigo after covid vaccine