Vertigo, problems w/ ears, getting desperate

[nalla]

About a month ago I had surgery (gallbladder removed) and a few days after I was still dizzy.  A week later I went to the Dr. because it was just getting worse. The Dr. looked in my ears and my left ear was filled with fluid. He said it's most likley due to all of the fluids they gave me in the hospital.
He gave me some nasal spray and to come back in 3 or 4 weeks to re-check them.  Well now the vertigo is BAD. I'm constantly sick to my stomach. I feel car sick all day.  Even when I'm laying down with my eyes closed, it feels like I'm on a boat or something.  And when I swallow I can feel both ears are full. They crackle and pop all the time. And sounds are becoming a little fuzzy. They also itch sometimes and I swear at times it feels like they are wet. (the outside hole)  The nasal spray has done nothing and the motion sikness pills my Dr. gave me are doing nothing to help.
I have an appointment on Thursday, but was hoping you could give me some idea's that will help me untill then.  Is there anything I can do to get rid of this vertigo and does anybody know what the next step the Dr. might take?

Thanks for any input.

[nalla]

Thanks so much for the info.  I will check that out and see if my symptoms match.  I hope not though!  I hope my Dr. is right and it's just fluid in there.  Yesterday I went in and he checked the fluid with this weird thing.  It measures the fluid or presure or something, and it showed up on the monitor thing that both ears where full.  Did your wife have a Dr. that checked her with something similar?  I wish I rememberd what the name of what he used is.  
He thinks this may be due to allergies.  And he gave me a cordozone shot to hopefully pop my ears and the fluid drain on it's own.  If that doesn't work then he wants to put tubes in to drain the fluid.
Did/does your wife have crackling sounds in her ears?  
I don't have any hearing loss.  Sometimes it just feels full and sounds seem dull at times.  kinda like i'm holding a pillow over my ears or something.  It's not like that all the time though.
I will definatlly check out that disease you mentiond and see if my symptoms match.  Thanks again!!

[Crop Duster]

I don't know what medicines you are taking but I do know something about the vertigo,dizziness and nausia that is associated with the inner ear.  My wife has Meniiere's disease.  She went to bed one night and awoke the next morning and was completely deaf in her left ear and had no balance system. I have taken her to every specialist in the U.S.A. and finally found a Dr. Shea at athe Shea Clinic in Memphis Tenn.  Phone number - 1-800-477-7432 --   He specializes in ear diseases and is a brilliant Dr.  He has trained most of the Doctors in the United States in methods of treating ear diseases such as Meniere's.  But, from what you have said about your symptoms, it is quite possible that some of the medicines you were given caused the symptoms you are having.  Streptomycine  was one of the wonder drugs when I was growing up back in the 50's but noone told us that it also kills your hearing.  It kills the small hair like sensors in the cockula that picks up the sound frequencies and transmits them to the brain.  But Doctors were giving it to their patients and glorifing the drug while all the time you were losing your hearing and didn't know it.  Your hearing can go over night so please don't mess around with a bunch of quacks, and there are plenty of them out there.  Believe me because I have researched this disease for 15 years and I hear of new quacks every day proclaiming they know how to stop the vertigo and dizziness caused by Menieres.  Go to the phone as soon as you possibley can and call Dr. Shea.  There is no cure for Menieres once it is developed but if he catches it in time, in the first stages of development, he can save your hearing. My nick name is Crop Duster and my phone number is 985-878-0801 and if I can help you please let me know.

[Wear/a/Jimmy]

Grasping at straws here, but if there was anything related to the surgery that could cause fluid retention, then that could possibly lead to dizzy issues.

I have never heard of allergies and dizyness being related. You may want to google that, and don't listen to quacks.

The tool used to look into your ear is an otoscope. The ear is rarely like the text book. Not every ear looks a like, so I do not rely on otoscopy 100% for anything. I use a battery of tools to make an assesment.

Otoscopy is just one of the tools.  Some docs think that the otoscope is all they need...  which is probably an indication that either:

1) They have no idea what they are doing
2) They are too cheap to hire an audiologist

Go see an ENT regarding your issues, one that employs an audiologist.

ENG = Electonystagmeography (sp)  

Googel the bi-caloric irrigation/balance disorders & the Dix Hallpike maneuver if you want to know more about the ENG study.

[nalla]

Thanks for your responce.  I didn't understand half of it, but thanks! LOL
So what is an ENG?  I don't really know anything about the ears, problems they could have and the testing

So a Dr. can't look into the ear with his ear thing (ha! see, I don't even know what that simple tool is called :)) and see if there is fluid in there?

What he did with me, is look into my ears (the thing they use to check a child for an ear infection) and then brough out this other thing. (I don't think he looked at my ear with this other thing)  He put it in my ear to check something and it hurt.  He said that if there is no pain then things are fine, but with me there was pain, so that showed him there was a problem.  I wish I could explain all of this better to you.  I'm not really giving you the proper info about this....sorry about that.
I guess what I'm asking, is if a regular MD can help me or do I need to see an ear Dr. and ask for special testing?  And that thing that my Dr. checked my ears with isn't good enough?

And about the meds, we already checked into that and it's not an issue.  What about allergies?  I wonder if any of this is related to allergies and not the fluid from the surgery?
Thanks again. I hope I wasn't too confusing!

[Wear/a/Jimmy]

You need a comprehensive hearing evaluation including tympanometry in order to check and see if there really is fluid in your ears.

An ENG study can be done, but ultimatley an MRI is the test of choice (at least for me)  ENG studies are extremely subjective and theire accuracy rate is around 40%. Flipping a coin has better odds.  But there are some tests within the ENG test battery, such as the caloric and Dix Hallpike manuever that are very subjective.

I wish I could be of more help but whatever this is, I don't know how to resolve it. Are you currently on any meds? If so you should google them and see if they can cause vertigo. You would be surprised by how many seemingly common bening drugs out there that cause vertigo.