A 52-year-old female had recurrent episodes of tinnitus, hearing less and vertigo. When systemic edema accompanied the vertigo attack, tinnitus and hearing less disappeared--the characteristic course of Lermoyez's syndrome.
Overhydration with drinking water could induce systemic edema, nystagmus and improvement of hearing, while dehydration with furosemide caused the impatred hearing and disapparance of edema and nystagmus. The results of the hydration and dehydration tests were directly opposite to those in patients with Meniere's disease, in which the etiology is endolymphatic hydrops. Therefore, we concluded that endolymphatic collapse was responsible for the characteristic course of the symptoms in our patient. The same mechanism of water metabolism is probably the cause of both Lermoyez's syndrome and idiopathic edema.
