Jump Start Menieres Programme

I’ve used this page to document the various things which I have tried to improve my diet and lifestyle whilst getting my symptoms successfully under control. It incorporates many suggestions which have been successfully tried out by our members also.  

However everyone is unique and have their own personal health conditions. If you have any existing medical conditions or concerns about any of the suggestions below then you should consult your doctor before trying them.   

Managing Menieres symptoms for me has been about going through a process of elimination as there can be many and multiple causes. It has been a slow systematic process but has achieved a steady systematic improvement over time.

Below is just a high level summary of what I and our members have found to be successful. There is much more detail under treatment which you can get to by clicking on this link.

Basic essentials   

Diet

Gluten, Dairy and Sugar are the big 3 from a Menieres perspective. You should look to minimise or cut out all three from your diet. Gluten and Dairy are very common food allergies with Menieres sufferers which cause inflammation. Sugar is addictive and causes inflammation and should be reduced as much as possible.

Carbohydrate is also addictive and a big feature of the Western Diet and also needs to be addressed. So a low carbohydrate diet is most successful.  

The ideal diet would be a whole foods diet only eating real food and lots of vegetables. A good rule is if it’s made in a factory then don’t eat it.

There are various diets that work equally well, Mediterranean diet, Paleo, Keto. Try one or rotate all three and see what works best for you.

Intermittent fasting

Humans have not evolved with constant eating. It’s perfectly natural for the human body to go periods without eating.

A study published in an issue of Cell Stem Cell by researchers from the University of Southern California showed that cycles of prolonged fasting protect against immune system damage and, moreover, induce immune system regeneration. They concluded that fasting shifts stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal, triggering stem cell based regeneration of an organ or system

The natural state of the stomach is acid and the stomach needs time to digest food and return to this acid state. The constant snacking of foods particularly those from the Western Diet, makes your stomach ferment and converts it from something like an acid bath to more of a septic pond. Which then leads to leaky gut which then puts your immune system into a heightened inflammatory condition.

Snacking between meals needs to be stopped to give your stomach time to recover and digest each meal.

What would be most effective from a Menieres perspective would be to create a daily 12 hour fast by making the 12 hours last between your dinner in the evening and your breakfast the next day e.g. dinner at 8 pm and breakfast at 8 am.

This approach gives your body a valuable break from eating for 12 hours in a 24 hour period but also maintains consistent blood sugar levels to avoid damaging spikes of high and low blood sugar through the active part of your day.

If you have got on well with a 12 hour fast each day then it can also be useful to try and miss a breakfast say a couple of days per week. For example, if you ate dinner at 8pm then skipped breakfast and had lunch at 12 noon. This would then give you a 16 hour fast which should be enough to get your body of fat burning rather than glucose burning.

Obviously you can drink in these periods of fasting but avoid sugary drinks, dairy, alcohol. Best drink water, infusions, green tea etc.

Vitamins           

When tested it’s normal for people with chronic illnesses to be seriously short of vitamins therefore I’ve found a basic programme of vitamin supplements has been needed to help the immune system regain control.

Vitamin C

Is very safe and a great viral and bacteria killer which kills on contact with them. There are various thoughts on the correct dosage but a daily dosage can be as much as you can take before causing diahorrea.

The daily need for an adult human to maintain good health varies according to each individual but is generally thought to be between 2,000 mg and 20,000 mg per day.

But if in doubt a general dose of 4,000 mg per day would be reasonably effective.

Vitamin D3

It’s the most important immune changing substance which will alter your immune system more than anything else.

Most people with chronic illness are seriously deficient in vitamin D.

Sunshine is necessary to make vitamin D. Thirty minutes of good sunshine on skin exposed by swimming costumes will give us about 5,000iu of D3.

But unless you live on the equator getting enough sunshine all year round is virtually impossible, hence the need to supplement. Vitamin D is extremely safe. So the maximum daily dose of 5 grams MMM gives 5,000iu of vitamin D3 or thereabouts is the most effective way to ensure sufficient vitamin D.

Vitamin K2

If you’re supplementing with D3, you’ll create a need for additional K2 so take this in combination with D3. K2 is fat soluble and works synergistically with D3 and calcium to aid in absorption. You should take a daily dosage of around 600 mcg.

Vitamin B12

Generally a severe deficiency of B12 in most chronically ill people. So a supplement of 1,000 mcg per day would be helpful. Vitamin B12 is generally very safe, the body takes what it needs and anything left over is passed away in urine.  

Multi B vitamins

Chronically ill people when tested are generally short of most B vitamins. An adequate level of B vitamins is vital to maintaining good health. So taking a general multi B vitamin each day would be helpful

Stress

Stress is a big factor in the onset of Menieres disease and many of our members have seen their first attacks of vertigo come after stressful periods in their lives.

Stress produces cortisol which is necessary in certain circumstances but over production of cortisol is very damaging to the body and can kill good bacteria and cause inflammation.

Sleep

The immune system only heals your body when you are asleep, hence you need a minimum of 7 hours sleep per night to give yourself a chance to heal.

Exercise

You should aim to get some exercise within your limit each day to maintain good health and movement. Any exercise or movement will do, whatever you can manage and whatever you enjoy.

Salt

Reducing salt intake to minimal levels is generally not a good idea. Also if you stop eating processed food your general salt intake will be much less anyway. What you need to do is be taking natural salt rather than refined salt, using sea salt, Himalayan salt etc. Natural salt contains many vital minerals which are essential to a healthy body.

You should aim for around a teaspoon of natural salt each day.   

For more information on amounts of salt you should be taking see our website page here 

Process of elimination

Once you have the basic essentials in place it may well be that this is enough to get your Menieres symptoms under control and start feeling well. It seems that more than 60% of sufferers can get their symptoms under control by introducing the above basic essentials.  

However if some or all of your symptoms still persist then you need to enter a process of elimination to see what else might help.

This involves reducing your toxic and environmental load to enable your immune system to regain control.

There is more detailed information on our website under treatments and also more widely on the internet but the main areas to be looking for would be as follows:

Virus

The studies by Dr Richard Gacek in the US have shown that almost 90% of his patients showed improved symptoms by taking antivirals.

We accumulate viruses throughout our lives and herpes virus, Epstein Barr etc can be dormant in our bodies for many years waiting for an opportunity to get active when the immune system is weakened.

There are pharmaceutical antivirals which need to be prescribed by a GP e.g. Famvir, Valtrex, Acyclovir which tend to work by suppressing the virus.

There are herbal antivirals you can take which actually kill the virus e.g. quercetin + zinc, lysine, monolaurin, olive leaf extract, oregano oil gel caps.  

Vitamin C is also a great viral killer

We are currently experimenting with a rotating multiviral approach where you would take a couple of different antivirals for a period of time then switch to a couple of different ones.

For more details on how you might try an antiviral approach see our page here     

Upper Cervical Chiropractor

Upper cervical spinal misalignment is a proven cause of Menieres symptoms which many of our members have found relief from. So best visit an upper cervical chiropractor to get spinal alignment checked out and eliminate as a potential cause.

TMJ

Jaw misalignment is also a proven cause of Menieres symptoms.

Toxin overload

Mould, heavy metals, mercury etc

Parasite bytes/Lyme

These can cause much the same Menieres symptoms as anything else

Hormone misbalance

A number of our members have reported increased menieres symptoms when they have had hormone misbalance issues.

Teeth

Poor dental work in extracting teeth can leave opportunities for bad bacteria in the mouth which would put your immune system into a heightened inflammatory state.

Root canal fillings are very controversial and can trap bad bacteria in your mouth again putting your immune system into a heightened inflammatory state.

Mercury fillings are also very controversial. Mercury constantly leaks into your body but most humans can deal with that and clear it away. However if you are chronically ill it suggests that you are one of the percentage of people who cannot clear mercury and hence get sent into an inflammatory state.   

Much of the above you can work away on yourself but if you wanted to speed things up or be guided by a medical professional then you should enlist the services of a Functional Practitioner who will take an holistic approach to finding the root cause of your symptoms. You can find a local Functional Practitioner near you off the Institute for Functional Medicine website here. A first appointment is likely to cost around £150 to £200.

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