Category: Deafness

The Journal of Upper Cervical Chiropractic Research published the results of a case study on March 21, 2023, documenting the resolution under chiropractic care of long-standing Meniere’s Disease and multiple associated symptoms.

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders defines this condition by stating, “Meniere’s disease is a disorder of the inner ear that causes severe dizziness (vertigo), ringing in the ears (tinnitus), hearing loss, and a feeling of fullness or congestion in the ear.” They estimate that approximately 615,000 people in the United States are currently diagnosed with Meniere’s disease and that 45,500 cases are newly diagnosed every year.

In this case, a 48-year-old woman, a retired nurse, went to the chiropractor. The woman had been suffering with Meniere’s Disease for many years, as well as a long list of associated symptoms from this condition. Her condition was initially only in one ear. Eventually, her other ear also started to have problems.

The woman’s history involved a number of accidents and incidents including, as a child, falling off her bike requiring head and knee stitches, falling off a horse and being kicked in the jaw, and falling out of a tree onto her back, leaving her unable to walk for two days. As an adult, she passed out in her kitchen and hit her forehead on a highchair, then the back of her head on the floor, knocking her unconscious. She had also been involved in multiple car accidents.

The woman had a variety of symptoms including vertigo episodes with nausea and vomiting, hearing loss, tinnitus, dizziness, imbalance, hearing distortion, brain fog, severe sweating, severe depression, anxiety with panic attacks, IBS, TMJ dysfunction, migraines, headaches, chronic fatigue, neck pain and radiating low back pain.

Because the woman was suffering with so many symptoms, her MD’s dismissed her as being a hypochondriac or someone just looking for drugs. She recalled her story by saying, “I have been called lots of things. Hypochondriac was one, liar, drug seeker, psychotic, and a hermit. Hard to explain how the medical world left me to die. I thought I was dying every day. I was told to learn to live with it. I can’t describe it, but it is awful. Meniere’s patients don’t realize that this is a massive autonomic dysfunction problem. They think that either somehow Meniere’s is causing all of this without realizing these are just more symptoms of the bigger problem or they have zero clue that all of this is connected because the medical community tells them there is nothing wrong.”

Specific forms of chiropractic care were started to correct the subluxations that were detected during an examination. Because the patient lived many miles from the original chiropractor, care was also given by additional chiropractors closer to the woman’s home who used the same approach.

Over the course of care, it was recorded that the woman improved in all aspects of her previous conditions. The original chiropractor, and author of this study kept in touch with this woman to monitor the progress of her care. He also performed a follow-up examination to verify the improvement. In recording the woman’s overall improvement, the author stated in his conclusion, “Chiropractic care had resolved all her complaints except hearing loss though it did improve.”

On April 27, 2020, the Journal of Upper Cervical Chiropractic Research published the results of a case study documenting the improvement of Meniere’s disease with chiropractic. Meniere’s disease was discovered in 1861 by Prosper Meniere and still remains loosely studied and not fully understood today.

According to the NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, “Meniere’s disease is a disorder of the inner ear that causes severe dizziness (vertigo), ringing in the ears (tinnitus), hearing loss, and a feeling of fullness or congestion in the ear. Meniere’s disease usually affects only one ear.” They estimate that approximately 615,000 people in the United States are currently diagnosed with Meniere’s disease and 45,500 new cases are diagnosed each year.

This disorder can happen at any age but is most common between 40 and 60 years of age. This condition is considered a disability by the Social Security Administration and diagnosed people who suffer from this can qualify for disability benefits.

In this case, a 68-year-old woman went to the chiropractor because she was suffering from severe dizziness and vomiting that would occur every 3 weeks for up to 8 hours at a time. She was suffering with this problem for the past 8 years. She also reported a secondary issue of occasional minor neck pain. Two years prior to seeking chiropractic services, her Ear, Nose, and Throat physician (ENT) had diagnosed the woman with Meniere’s disease.

The woman described her episodes by explaining that she would start hearing a continuous “roar” in her left ear that shortly developed into 5 to 8 hours of crippling dizziness and vomiting. For the following 2-3 days after the episode, the woman commented that she felt as if she were intoxicated with alcohol.

A chiropractic examination and x-rays were performed specifically looking to see if there was a subluxation in the woman’s upper neck. The results of the examination and x-rays revealed that the top bone in the neck, the Atlas (C1), was mispositioned leading to the conclusion that a subluxation was present at C1.

With these findings, specific forms of chiropractic adjustments were performed over the following 13 months. The goal of the adjustments was to reduce the subluxation found at the woman’s C1 vertebrae. Follow-up post x-rays were performed during care to access the correction of the atlas from the adjustments.

At the woman’s first reassessment, it was recorded that the woman had not suffered a single episode of Meniere’s disease since she started chiropractic care. After that time, the woman reported only one minor episode of dizziness and three to four short occurrences of feeling intoxicated at times. During the woman’s 2nd reassessment, she claimed that she is doing 95% better since starting chiropractic care.

In their study conclusion, the authors commented, “After the first adjustment, the patient has not had any major MD episodes, with only one short occurrence of dizziness. Her ENT confirmed that the she is no longer showing signs or symptoms of MD (Meniere’s disease).” They added, “The improvement in the patient’s Meniere’s Disease symptomatology while solely undergoing upper cervical care to reduce her atlas subluxation suggests that MD symptomatology may be related to the atlas subluxation.”