By Sylvie Bordzuk
In January 2014, while driving to work and listening to my favorite radio station, the music suddenly sounded off-key. I changed the station, but that didn’t help the distortion. When I got to the office, I picked up the phone, put it to my left ear as usual, and was utterly mystified as to why the person at the other end sounded so strange. I switched to my right ear, and the distortion disappeared.
That was the beginning of my journey. I had had tinnitus for years, but now I had suddenly lost partial hearing in my left ear. My ENT never gave me a clear diagnosis, so after searching online, I came up with cochlear hydrops, an imbalance of fluid in the ear.
I got a hearing aid, and after a few months, my brain corrected the disconnect between the two ears. Music became harmonious again, and other people’s speech more cohesive. That’s the beauty of the brain’s neuroplasticity.
Two and half years went by. I needed stronger adjustments to the hearing aid for my left ear every so often, but my right ear continued to be normal, and I had adapted to my monaural hearing impairment.
Then in June 2017, I woke up in the middle of the night with severe vertigo. The room was spinning uncontrollably, and I needed to vomit. I woke up my husband, and after a half hour or so of non-stop spinning and vomiting, we decided to call 911.
I was transported by ambulance to the hospital, where I was given Valium. Eventually, the spinning stopped, and my husband and I took a taxi home.
Shown with her husband above and daughter below, Sylvie says she is grateful for the support her family gave her as she navigated Ménière’s disease.
But lesser dizziness as well as full-on vertigo continued to hit me totally unpredictably. In the course of a few months, I saw over a dozen doctors, including several ENTs, an allergist, and a neurologist, none of whom could help me.
One ENT said I needed to see a neuro-otologist, a doctor specializing in both neurology and conditions of the ear. She diagnosed Ménière’s disease, whose symptoms matched what I was experiencing: sudden loss of hearing (usually in one ear), tinnitus, and vertigo.
She prescribed a medication that had to be specially compounded by a pharmacy. I thought this would be my miracle drug, but all it was meant to do was to help spread out the attacks and reduce their severity. And it took a long time to kick in.
By then I was having attacks daily, even hourly, and on a scale from 1 to 10 some of the attacks were an 11 or 12. Many attacks lasted six, eight, or 10 hours. My neuro-otologist tried steroid injections directly into my ear. They were extremely painful and may have helped, but not in the long run.
She told me about the most extreme treatment available—surgery—which would make the vertigo stop but would make me completely deaf in that ear. I did not opt for that solution.
I had medications to stop the attacks once they began, but I often couldn’t take them because I was vomiting so much. I lost over 20 pounds in about six months. I kept daily charts of what I ate (I had to be on a very low sodium diet), the medications I took, the severity of the attacks, etc. I had meltdowns and cursed God. My life was consumed by Ménière’s.
I had been working as an executive assistant for an import and distribution company, but when I could no longer function at the office or even drive there, my boss let me work from home. There were days when I couldn’t even do that, because I couldn’t focus on the computer screen. I just lay down on the living room couch all day, my head spinning or being so off-balance I needed help just to get to the bathroom.
I spent my time listening to audiobooks and podcasts; it was impossible to read. I tried meditation and tai chi (when I had a break from the dizziness). I listened to whatever I could find that had to do with navigating the hell of Ménière’s.
In August 2019, I told my boss that I would have to resign. As it turns out, that was the best decision I could have made. The enormous stress of my job had been a large contributing factor to the severity of my disease, and letting that responsibility go was decidedly the medicine I needed.
Over the next two and a half years, the attacks became fewer and fewer, and less and less severe. I was able to start driving—a big deal since my husband doesn’t.
From 2022 to 2023, I had a 15-month reprieve with no dizziness and no vertigo attacks at all. I still took my maintenance meds and watched my sodium intake, but my need for the vertigo-stopping prescriptions abated, and I was able to move those to a higher shelf in my kitchen cabinet.
I had a recurrence of vertigo in March 2023, when I was under a great deal of family stress, but those attacks were sporadic, relatively mild, and were gone after a few weeks. I had recently started working part-time at a local library, and I loved it. But, unfortunately, I couldn’t be relied on to be there for my shifts, so I resigned from that job, too—only this time, reluctantly.
I have now been dizziness- and vertigo-free since June 2023, and I will be taking maintenance meds for the rest of my life as well as being careful with my sodium intake. I have read articles about research that shows that, in many cases, while the hearing loss is permanent, Ménière’s vertigo can eventually burn itself out. I hope that is my case. But I know that there is always a possibility that it can return—especially with high, extended stress.
I am extremely grateful to my family (especially my husband, Gary), my friends, and the professionals who helped me stay positive during my years-long ordeal. People with chronic illnesses know that they often change your perspective on life, and that has been true for me.
Ménière’s forced me to leave my job just a few months before Covid, but during the next two years, as my vertigo symptoms began to wane, I wrote and published two children’s picture books. I’m now a member of several writing groups, where I’ve made new friends, and in October 2024, I published a small volume of poetry. I honestly believe my interest in writing would never have blossomed if I were still working full-time.
Ménière’s is a life-altering disease. Its victims can experience unbearable suffering, as I did. But in my journey to wellness, I discovered new paths to happiness and productivity. I hope that continuing research will soon find a cure and/or new ways to treat this disease, so that every patient can once again live life to the fullest.
New York resident Sylvie Bordzuk is a retired executive assistant and former French and Spanish teacher. She still tutors language privately. For more, see sylviebordzukauthor.com.
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Eventually I told my boss that I would have to resign. As it turns out, that was the best decision I could have made. The enormous stress of my job had been a large contributing factor to the severity of my disease, and letting that responsibility go was decidedly the medicine I needed.