I am very excited and need to share with all!!
Feeling so much better from my migraines and vestibular neuritis taking valacyclovir .
I had 2 very scary episodes one a couple years ago that ended in the ER and another recently.
The first time they could not figure out what I had, did all kinds of tests, I felt like in a boat, very weak my eyelids were very heavy, could not function but I had a recent episode of shingles in my left side. Thanks to my husband insístance that there had to be a relation between both sickness my neurologist gave me a strong treatment of valacyclovir for a year and after the first couple of weeks it was me again! Could not believe how good I felt.
After the year I finished with my treatment and was doing great but I had a stressful situation and got a terrible vertigo and migraines , did not relate this 2 episodes, after 6 months of feeling awful taking several medications for migraine and all kinds of eye and balance therapies that did not seem to work at all I found this article from Doctor Gacek that explains that if you had chicken pox as a kid you can later in life have it manifest as zoster and it can be dormant in your nervous system and suddenly wake up and cause vertigo, migraines etc… and that he had done a research with more than 200 recurring vertigo patients during 8 years and was able to cure 80% of all the cases. So because of my past experience I got started on Valacyclovir with a strong dose 3 times a day 1 mg and after 2 months as he said I am 89% me again! No feeling in a boat, no sensitivity to light , no vertigo, almost no migraines! I encourage you to explore this option, I have found some neurologist are resistant to long periods of antiviral , show them his reasearch and maybe the chicken pox you had in youth is inside and making you feel so miserable. Fight for it and give it a try for 2 months per Dr Gaceks instructions, it has to be given in a specific way to help. Here is the link of the article and God Bless you all I will have you in my prayers!
Very interesting that…i had a lousy dose of chicken pox when i was a child.
oh! I had chicken pox in my youth, same as my siblings, and my brother has had vertigo episodes as well, I feel more on a boat… interesting.
do you have to take the medication forever?
Well, it just goes to show how many conditions there are ‘out there’ which could cause MAV symptoms and how impossible it is to exclude all other possibilities with MAV being a diagnosis of exclusion. In UK on NHS we do have an anti-shingles vaccination available to seventy year olds (there’s some very specific age restraint, valid reasons given but currently elude me). Wonder whether that would protect against the chickenpox virus later inducing MAV as well, or indeed precipitate MAV attacks in itself. There is archive material on this forum from others with first-hand experience of a Herpes Zoster diagnosis. Helen
This is a popular hypothesis for the cause of Menieres. Hard to prove.
Very pleased the medication seems to have worked for you though.
That makes it more like MAV then. Hard to prove. I truly believe MAV can have lots of root causes, trauma - recent or past, fluctuating hormones, hardened lifelong migraine going into overdrive, plus all the other people with MAV-like symptoms who get tossed into the MAV bucket for want of anywhere else to put them when nothing more obvious comes to light on investigation, so why couldn’t Herpes Zoster be another root cause for some and, if antivirals worked, maybe that’s proof enough, it was Herpes Zoster that was causing it. Something must be. Recent shingles surely indicates its active. As with MAV alot may depend on medical history. Good idea to keep an open mind. Helen
I greatly recommend reading the article I sent and why not give it a try ! It does not hurt and if it takes care of the problem for good it is amazing!
It’s absolutely fantastic this has helped you. My only question would be: if this was the key, why aren’t Dr. Hain and Dr. S, for example, pushing it as part of their treatment protocol?
I’m really interested in this. When I was diagnosed it was suggested that there was a viral link but then no one has ever treated it. I recently asked for soem anti virals which helped but it was a short course. Thank you for sharing this. I shall look it up. K
I agree, it would seem that it is unlikely to be the answer for everyone, but worth exploring for some?
Dr Hain mentions it in connection to Vestibular Neuritis viz dizziness-and-balance.com (such useful website) but that seems as far as it goes. Certainly worth exploring for anybody who’s had shingles maybe. Anything’s worth a look. Helen
Not many doctors have done a reasearch and followed 200 patients for more than 8 years.
Doctor Gacek has published several books and has really looked deeply in this issue.
I am flying to Boston to see him, he will retire next year and want to know the long term intake instructions for my antivirals, don’t want to go back to this nightmare!
I found a link for the free, full-text article here:
https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/348710
There’s a slightly newer, alternative explanation for this symptom constellation and for loss of low frequency hearing in Meniere’s arguing its due to the death of neurons in the Ganglion due to the extreme level of the ELH (but not because of pressure, because of chemical reactions?). There’s a youtube of this lecture somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t find it. I believe it’s presented by Dr. Cliff Megerian of University Hospitals, Cleveland who’s a really great presenter. If I find it I will share, but if you see it, please post it!
That’s interesting. I had chickenpox as a child and a shingles episode as an adult
And now I have MAV!
Wow this is so interesting the medical medium also has a similar theory could I ask what your symptoms were ? I’m so happy you found your fix 
I do not believe much of the book “medical medium”. The science in that book is speculation at best ! My 2 cents YMMV
I totally agree tbh but he does seem to have a similar protocol as mentioned above tbh all the medical medium does is clean up people’s lifestyles so I think if most did that they’d feel better 
That is awesome, so pleased for you. I have been looking for more info on this, I can’t find the link you said you sent? Anyway, I can try and google it. I have exhausted most of the medical reasons behind my migraines and I am getting to the odd less obvious ones now! I had shingles when I was a teenager and then again when I was in my 20’s. I am 43 now, so not sure if it’s too long ago, but I know it is dormant in the system. I am going to take this information to my GP and see what he thinks. Thank so much for sharing