In order to do a labyrinthectomy you need to have almost no useful hearing on that side. Because, by definition, when you do a labyrinthectomy you are making that person totally deaf for ever and ever. A vestibular nerve section spares the labyrinth so you can cut the vestibular nerve, preserve the cochlea so their hearing, although it may not be perfect, is still better than nothing. That s certainly become the standard for what we do. Benign paroxysmal vertigo is what we would want you to treat in your office after you ve diagnosed it.
Habituation exercises didn t work.
What happens is the patient just got better on his own. That s the term benign. These patients do get better, some of them. We usually see it in people who have landed suddenly in an airplane, who were scuba diving or who just got hit. We see a lot of both wife and child abuse who are getting slapped on the side of the head, and Cranial nerve, vascular compression syndromes.