Thank you for that link, Andrew, it was most interesting.
I quite appreciate your reasons for not announcing your difficulties with MD in the past. Sadly, people with no experience of vertigo or hearing loss have no idea how unnerving these things can be. I am still at the 'probably Meniere's' stage, though I have had progressive hearing loss for many years and have lost the lower frequencies. I no longer listen to music much because I can only hear parts of it - everything below violas has gone, and I prefer to remember how it should sound, and did all those years ago.
I graduated to 2 hearing aids several years ago, but still struggle to hear in crowded places. Unfortunately people don't seem to grasp that a hearing aid doesn't restore 'normal' hearing, just tries to assist what you have left, and that lip reading is harder than they imagine. Traffic noise, clattering plates, groups of people all talking at once, are impossible. However, I've got to the 'grumpy old woman' stage and if I can't make out what someone is saying, I tell them so, and explain that they should speak more clearly (not shout) and a little more slowly, and be prepared to repeat or rephrase. The danger is that one stops listening because concentrating on deciphering the Chinese Whispers is hard work, and then one gets a reputation for being daft, when one is merely deaf!
I hope your website post gets read by non-MD sufferers too; the more we talk about it and explain it, the more chance we have of not being dismissed as drunk when we're really in a spin.