According to Italian scientists, Both drugs and surgery may be effective in treating Meniere's disease. Meniere's disease is a condition of the middle ear, affecting the hearing apparatus. A build up of pressure causes vertigo and nausea which can be very disabling. Generally Meniere's disease leads to hearing loss in the affected ear, and the disease may also spread to the other ear.
This disease has a wide range of treatments available.Many patients spend years trying one after the other without seeing any improvement. One problem in assessing the value of a particular treatment is that the condition is very unpredictable - it may resolve spontaneously and then suddenly reappear. Researchers in Italy, have surveyed the results of treatment in a group of 300 patients with Meniere's disease, treated over a ten year period.Half the patients found the disease was controlled with drug therapy. The rest - for whom standard drug treatment and measures like salt restriction did not work - had a range of interventions, some of them surgical. An operation called vestibular nerve section - cutting a nerve in the middle ear - gave relief in 93 per cent of cases. There are more drastic forms of surgery, but these usually lead to hearing loss, while the vestibular nerve section does not.
