John’s story

I discovered I had menieres disease on a short romantic weekend break in Venice.

I’d previously had a slight buzzing in my ear and a feeling of pressure in my head at work. I was having trouble making out what people were saying.

My first ever vertigo attack came in my hotel room after work one evening. I suddenly hit the bathroom floor and could not move for 5 hours, then I vomited and blacked out. I had no idea what was happening and thought I had food poisoning.

Shortly afterwards I then had my Venice trip where my memories were very unromantic. I had my second ever vertigo attack and continued to have one every day we were there.

The first day I had one on the waterbus and could not get off it, going round and round until evening.

That night in Venice I tried to google what was wrong with me and came up with Meniere’s Disease. That looked to be exactly what I had. Everything I read said there was no cure for it and I would go deaf. That put me into deep trauma.

Next day I went to a café, felt dizzy, rushed to the toilet and could not get out for an hour until I had eventually vomited down the toilet.

On return home from Venice the following week I had a vertigo attack every day for 5 days.

In a short period of time my hearing had gone, I couldn’t go to work, I was frightened to leave the house. I wouldn’t go anywhere without a sick bag.

My GP had no clue what was wrong. My ENT Consultant had no treatment that worked. The ultimate cure was the destruction of my inner ear to stop the random vertigo.

But that would leave me deaf without balance.

Typing at a keyboard became impossible. I forgot the beginning of a sentence by the time I got to the end of it.

I had no energy and had to sleep for most of the day.

How could this happen to me? I played Premier League Oxfordshire tennis, now I can barely get to the local shop, all because my left ear has stopped working.