[Odd stories of patients suffering from Menière's disease]. / Les étranges histoires des patients... et de leurs docteurs (!) dans le tourbillon du Menière!

ABSTRACT

The cause of Meniere's disease is unknown. The postmortem examination of the temporal bone reveals an "endolymphatic hydrops" of the inner ear. Classically, patients describe episodes of vertigo, fluctuations of hearing and tinnitus. But some report "strange stories" that deserve doctor's attention. This article explains why their history (as those suffering from any other vestibular disorder) is often particular, to recall the few knowledge of the disease, how the endolymphatic hydrops was considered as the cause of the disorder, while it is rather an epiphenomenon, and to show how one can believe, wrongly, that a therapy is efficient after a study that seems however at first correctly performed.