>>107249300>What causes Meniere'sYour ears have a system for sensing balance (the vestibular system). It distinguishes up/down when your eyes are closed, detects linear and rotational acceleration, and helps your eyes calibrate up/down when they're open. This system is made up of neat little stones in a water-based solution called endolymph. In a way, it works similar to using "the bubble" to determine if something is level, but instead of an air bubble going up, it's a stone going down.
Meniere's is caused by too much endolymph in this system, increasing system pressure. It disrupts the little hairs that are used to detect where the balance stones lie, causing vertigo.
Eventually, the increasing pressure causes endolymph to burst from its container and leak into surrounding ear structures, one of which is the cochlea of the auditory system. The cochlea now increases in pressure and its little hairs stop working too, causing hearing loss and tinnitus
As to why fluid builds up in the first place? Iirc, there's no well defined root cause. It's pretty rare, so there's not much data to work with. Our current understanding is that it's mostly random chance with a sprinkle of genetic predisposition mixed in. That's admittedly a deeply unsatisfying answer, but until we fund a bunch of PhDs to look into this niche problem for the next 10-20 years, it's what we got
