Page last modified: July 26, 2020
Our Meniere's page was ranked as the most reliable web page on Meniere's, by an article in an Otolaryngology journal evaluating 50 web sites on Meniere's disease (Bojrab et al, 2020). Our score for reliability was 2.96, compared to (for example), Mayo clinic's page which scored 2.63 (which was google ranked #1). The maximum score is 3. We suspect if other pages on our site were ranked similarly, they would also score at the top for reliability because of our practice of supplying evidence for almost all factual statements, and separating opinion from evidence. We have recently seen pages from major institutions making rather outrageous claims -- we think because the pages are being edited by persons who are good at web design, but perhaps not experts in dizziness.
//gizmodo.com/how-i-tried-to-sell-the-healing-crystals-in-my-ears-1837835150
Chicago Dizziness and Hearing has a gigantic clinical database containing about 30,000 patient records going back to 1990, mainly concerning conditions including dizziness. We recently have developed tools to explore this database, and we are now beginning to update pages on this site with the aggregate results. We often have about 10 times the patients with particular diagnoses reported by others in the literature.
Published in 2020 is an article by Gomez et al on a genetic cerebellar syndrome and the patients response to medication.
Published in 2019 is a new article by Dr. Cherchi on OCT (ocular coherence tomography) in vestibular disorders. Also in 2019, we published yet another chapter on Migraine associated vertigo.
As of May, 2018, we published two new articles on bilateral vestibular loss in Frontiers.
A new treatment for chronic migraine has hit the "streets". Three of these drugs have now been approved since May 2018. They are generally "anti-CGRP antibodies" (Giamberardino et al, 2016). There are also two new "pant" drugs, also working on CGRP, marketed for acute treatment. The CGRP antibody drugs have not really lived up to their hype, and we do not find them useful for vertigo.
Visual vertigo is a condition where patients are intolerant of situations where there are large amounts of visual stimulation -- examples include walking through the aisles of a grocery store, difficulties with viewing scrolling computer screens, and driving problems where the speed gets above a certain threshold (often superhighway). It is sometimes diagnosed as a migraine variant (e.g. vestibular migraine), as a psychiatric condition (e.g. PPPD), as an ocular disturbance (e.g. in patients with 3rd nerve palsies or otolithic problems), and as a reorganization to loss of vestibular sensation (e.g. visual dependence).
Some progress has been made in treating this condition by the optometry profession, through manipulation of eye-wear and visual exercises. We have recruited an OD to treat this condition, Dr. Marsha Sorenson. This is going well.
We are also expanding our visual vertigo treatment to include a specific regimen for PPPD (persistant postural perceptive dizziness). The core methodology will be as suggested -- an SNRI/SSRI and habituation for visual symptoms.
Dai et al (2014) reported successful treatment with a variant of motion sickness, Mal de Debarquement, with a 5 day adaptation protocol. For a few years we treated patients with our own version of this protocol, but we stopped due to the logistical difficulties. We are hoping right now to make some progress with a cheaper home-based VR protocol.
Chicago Dizziness and Hearing has the "VHIT" test machine, which is a device that quantifies the results of "head impulses". This is a new technology to assess vestibular function. It is very good in detecting unilateral vestibular loss, such as due to tumors or vestibular neuritis. It is also modestly useful in assessing vestibular compensation - -persons who are uncompensated have "overt" saccades, and those who are compensated have "covert saccades".
We also use the VHIT to follow patients with bilateral vestibular impairment, to decide whether or not they are getting worse. It is far less stimulating that the rotatory chair, and we sometimes use it in place of VENG/R-chair in motion sensitive persons. Again it is a little tricky as people can improve on the VHIT (due to compensation) but remain unchanged on the rotatory chair (when one considers the entire vestibular response). We have also found VHIT somewhat helpful in occasional situations where a "tie breaker" is needed between ENG and rotatory chair.