In 1885, the French doctor Prosper Menière described a syndrome to which he gave his name. Combining an attack of rotational vertigo lasting from 30 minutes to several hours, tinnitus is a hypoacousis during the attack. Meniere’s disease is very rare. The attacks can repeat themselves with unpredictable frequency- for example, three episodes per week for a month followed by a remission period of twenty years. Hearing deteriorates progressively with the attacks. In some forms, the disease is of an autoimmune origin...

“The treatment is difficult; it is primarily of a psychological and dietary order because an inappropriate life-style can help to cause attacks. After this, there is a gradation in relation to the development of the patient’s state: treatments with corticoids, pressure treatment (1), destruction of the inner ear, eventually surgical sectioning of the auditory nerve”, explains Professor Lefebvre, head of the ENT department of the University Hospital of Liège.

(1) A small pump whose nozzle is positioned in the auditory canal varies the pressure. This pressure variation is communicated to the inner ear and reduces, by some unknown mechanism, the number of vertigo attacks shown by the patient.