Intro

I should have started this blog a few years ago, because I have had this condition now, I believe for perhaps 10 years. But 10 years ago I had no idea what Meniere’s was, in fact I wasn’t even aware that it existed, let alone that I had it. I first discovered that perhaps It was Menieres’ by googling the symptoms I was suffering from about three years ago. I had been having bouts of vertigo and also a fluctuation in my hearing for quite some time but had never linked the two things together.

Now almost three years after I stumbled across my possible affliction I am virtually deaf.

The three years has seen a steady decline, and I should have been under the care of ENT specialists who may have been able to stall its progress but due to my circumstances I wasn’t able to do that. The reason being that my wife, Jackie and I had bought a liveaboard sailboat, in 2013, and were about to take off on a big adventure exploring the Caribbean islands, a dream we had conjured up back in the cold and damp UK some ten years ago.

This adventure lasted for over three years during which I gradually lost my hearing, and became an armchair expert on Meniere’s.

I now know quite a lot about how the ears work, or don’t work. The outer ear, the middle ear, the inner ear, the choclea, and hair cells. The sack of fluid that the hair cells are bathed in composed of vital fluids that become messed up in Meniere’s and this leads to the death of these haircells.

You can’t grow new hair cells, once they’re gone they’re gone for good which I find Is strange because I don’t seem to have that problem with other hair cells in my body. In fact I seem to grow new ones by the week where they never were before. I’ve got hairs on my shoulder that I haven’t had in 69 years. My nose seems to think it should have a beard and my eyebrows seem to be trying to make up for my receding hairline. So what is it with haircells in my ears, and why do fish and chickens haircells renew themselves when humans don’t. It’s one of natures mysteries that the boffins have yet to unravel.