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Meniere's Disease, Gluten, Viruses, Oh My!

Brrrandy

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Brrrandy Rookie
Brrrandy
Posted

In high school I got some strange virus, and around the same time I got dizzy for the first time.

In college I got what they called "Mono," and it was the summer after that I had my first major vertigo attack and was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease, which has calmed down (but I still get tinnitus and some fluctuating hearing loss if I drink too much).

Then, skip forward, I had many of the usual tell-tale signs of celiac (brain fog, muscle aches, some anxiety, migraines), went off gluten, and felt frickin' amazing.

I also consistently have had problems with my neck (lots of cracking, aching, pain near ear).

Migraines were fine but have returned after starting birth control.

Are any of these connected? Specifically the Meniere's/Virus/Gluten connection? How? Is there some weird superbug that causes autoimmune disorders? Is there a genetic component? Or am I trying to draw intersections between things that are actually just running parallel? I still feel pretty susceptible to viruses of all kinds. Any advice for how to beef up against these? I'd especially like to read some research or articles if anyone's got anything, but anecdotal evidence is more than welcome, for sure.

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Skylark Collaborator
Skylark
Posted

All sorts of viruses can trigger celiac. For me it was flu.

As far as general immunity, mine is better off gluten and on nutritional supplements.

Kim69 Apprentice
Kim69
Posted

About 1 yr before I was dx Coeliac I had vestibular neuritis - very dizzy, vomiting, room spinning! A bit like your virus. I was in hospital ER for two nights while they worked out what was wrong with me.

Brrrandy Rookie
Brrrandy
Posted
  • Author

Interesting. Has anyone else familiar with the idea that viruses can trigger Celiac, or why?

Thanks guys!

cyberprof Enthusiast
cyberprof
Posted

Interesting. Has anyone else familiar with the idea that viruses can trigger Celiac, or why?

Thanks guys!

I'm not an expert but it's generally accepted that not everyone has celiac from birth. When someone develops it later in life, the cause can possibly be a virus, an operation, pregnancy, stress.

In layman's terms, the virus-trigger theory is that because a virus sets off an immune system response, it causes the immune system to mount a response against the protein in gluten, and thus triggers the body to attack itself. But I'm not sure that this is a medically-proven theory.

Kim69 Apprentice
Kim69
Posted

In high school I got some strange virus, and around the same time I got dizzy for the first time.

In college I got what they called "Mono," and it was the summer after that I had my first major vertigo attack and was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease, which has calmed down (but I still get tinnitus and some fluctuating hearing

loss if I drink too much).

Then, skip forward, I had many of the usual tell-tale signs of celiac (brain fog, muscle aches, some anxiety,

migraines), went off gluten, and felt frickin' amazing.

I also consistently have had problems with my neck (lots of cracking, aching, pain near ear).

Migraines were fine but have returned after starting birth

control.

Are any of these connected? Specifically the Meniere's/Virus/Gluten connection? How? Is there some

weird superbug that causes autoimmune disorders? Is there a genetic component? Or am I trying to draw intersections between things that are actually just running parallel? I still feel pretty susceptible to viruses of all kinds.

Any advice for how to beef up against these? I'd especially like to read some research or articles if anyone's got anything, but anecdotal evidence is more than welcome, for

sure.

Hi brandy. I just noticed you said you had a pain behind the ear? I get an extremely horrible nerve pain in my ear. It is triggered by wind - not every time but most of the time it happens. I changed to cymbalta (an antidepressant) from another AD and have been pleased to note that the pain while still occurring is only faint now.

What is your ear pain like? Or is it related to menieres?

beachbirdie Contributor
beachbirdie
Posted

Interesting. Has anyone else familiar with the idea that viruses can trigger Celiac, or why?

Thanks guys!

There is some thinking that viruses can trigger many autoimmune conditions, that somehow the body responds to the virus, and when the virus is gone the body turns on itself because the anti-virus thing doesn't turn off The body can't distinguish "self" from "invader" (that's very simplistic but hopefully helpful). That is where it is interesting to have genetic information, because it can add to the information as to how likely it is that someone might get a certain condition...the least likely to get celiac, for example, are those with neither the DQ2 nor DQ8 (not 100%, just least likely).

Certain genes are associated with conditions like MS, lupus, Hashimoto's/Graves diseases, Diabetes Mellitus Type 1. You can Open Original Shared Link about the HLA-DQ associations, you'll have to scroll down the page a bit to find it. There are links for each type, and if you click through those DQ types you will see with which diseases each is associated.

beachbirdie

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shadowicewolf Proficient
shadowicewolf
Posted

Severe case of the flu did it to me.

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