Vertigo, Tinnitus, Hearing Loss, Fullness in the Ears
Here are several disorders that cause vertigo or tinnitus or hearing loss or fullness in the ears, or some combination thereof, confuse patients with or without the disorders because of the similarities.
- *Ménière’s disease is not only hard to spell (thank you Siri), it confuses people because it is so similar to the other disorders below. It presents in contrast to most of them with vertigo with tinnitus and gradual hearing loss; PRESSURE in ear or ears is a key distinguishing feature. Your physician is more than likely to prescribe a low salt diet. Surgical myringotomy is often indicated. Stem cells can help because it’s an inflammatory disorder. If surgery is required, stem cells can also help the wound healing.
- *Vestibular labyrinthitis presents as hearing loss and vertigo as balanced symptoms. An inflammatory condition, so, perhaps in the future, when we can order up stem cells for us to treat a bout of this, they may help us. Imagine someday in the not so distant future going into your doctors office and having them give you a bolus of stem cells because of this kind of an inflammatory, though acute, disorder.
- *Vestibular neuronitis: this involves only the vestibular system (no hearing loss).
- *Acoustic neuroma: vertigo with gradual hearing loss (tumor from Schwann cells). Because stem cells can be recruited by malignancies to do their work, they are contraindicated with disorders like this.
- *Central vertigo: vertical nystagmus. So, that means you’ll have a predominately up down component on the nystagmus component on examination by your doc. Your physician will know, and he would look for a more central (brain) disorder.
