Welcome to Our Table – Meniere’s Low-Sodium Cookbook – the Art of Flavour

December 4, 2025.Reading time 7 minutes.

2025.

Here we are, unbelievably at the end of another lap around the sun. And I’m quietly filled with hope as Meniere’s research, globally, is uncovering pieces to the puzzle to stop the ‘dizzy terror’.

We’re not quite there yet for a cure, or successful treatments that don’t involve choosing invasive procedures to kill off balance cells to stop the vertigo etc, but after having Meniere’s disease since 1995, and seeing the increase in treatment options over the 30 years, and the new research coming out, I am quietly expectant.

New research led by Professor Jose Antonio Lopez Escamez at the University of Sydney and the Kolling Institute shows that Meniere’s is not a single condition – the symptoms may all be similar but the causes are varied, and identifiable. His painstaking work has uncovered that up to 40% of patients may have a genetic origin for their Meniere’s whilst the other 60% have some kind of immune system problem. Amongst the immune subgroup, there are 3 additional distinct categories, all identifiable via blood tests – auto-immune, allergic inflammation or auto-inflammation.

Click to access entnd25-escamez.pdf

But while we patiently wait for our individualised treatments, we still need to try to control factors that may set off our vertigo, tinnitus, hearing loss, brain fog, etc. And one way to do that is with a low-sodium diet. That is, if salt is a trigger for you. And it is for me. Usually, if I have a food with high sodium content, the very next day my tinnitus has ramped up it’s volume telling me that it is still here. If I did still get vertigo (an injection of gentamicin into my middle ear stopped that in 2004) I would have a vertigo attack.

And so this to help. Hot off the press – a low-sodium cookbook. Collated by me (Meniere’s since 1995), Sally Edsall (Meniere’s since 2016), Kim Dean (Meniere’s since 2010), Phillip Stephanou (Meniere’s), Anne Elias (Meniere’s since 2015), and Low Sodium Foods Australia, and the Meniere’s community, for people with Meniere’s, with profits donated to research. Published by Lilly Pilly Publishing.

It’s a most comprehensive and valuable low-sodium cookbook. 218 pages. 88 recipes. 244 food suggestions that feel like you are sitting around a table with Menierians causally chatting about food.

Let’s have a look at it.

Welcome to Our Table ~ A Meniere’s Low-Sodium Cookbook. The Art of Flavour.

Here’s a sneak peek:

It’s packed with Meniere’s information, research, and lifestyle suggestions besides recipes. That makes it different to your usual cookbook. And while there is an endless amount of low-sodium recipes available online today, the recipes in this cookbook come from members of the Ménière’s community, in the hope that they help you.

What I love about this book, is the fact that, if you are unable to care for yourself, a friend or family or partner can pick it up, and look up foods that will be okay for you to eat!

There’s nothing better than that.

Here’s some reviews that are coming in:

“Thank you all for your hard work. I am a qualified chef and adjusting to NOT using salt has been an interesting journey. Thanks for fresh ideas and new inspiration.”

“The book has arrived and I just want to congratulate all involved , it’s fabulous!”

“It’s arrived! Sending out a massive thank you to Julieann and the team for creating this excellent resource which I know I’ll use regularly! Only being diagnosed in 2024, it has been a challenging journey to navigate my new ‘normal’. ‘Welcome to Our Table’ has cut down the hard work of the many diet/lifestyle changes we need to make. With so many beautiful, yummy recipes and food ideas, I’m definitely feeling inspired and less stuck. Go get it – you won’t regret it! It’s so beautifully presented too.”

“Sooooo excited to get this in the mail today. As soon as I got home from work I read it from cover to cover non-stop. What a beautiful book. I just love it.”

Grab a copy at online bookstores – hardcover, paperback or eBook.

Happy cooking,

Julieann

Julieann Wallace is a multi-published author and artist. When she is not disappearing into her imaginary worlds as Julieann Wallace – children’s author, or as Amelia Grace – fiction novelist, she is working as a secondary teacher. Julieann’s 7th novel with a main character with Meniere’s disease—‘The Colour of Broken’—written under her pen name of Amelia Grace, was #1 on Amazon in its category a number of times, and was longlisted in 2021 and 2022, to be made into a movie or TV series by Screen Queensland, Australia. She donates profits from her books to Meniere’s Research, to help find a cure or successful treatment for everyone. Julieann is a self-confessed tea ninja and Cadbury chocoholic, has a passion for music and art, and tries not to scare her cat, Claude Monet, with her terrible cello playing.

Julieann is also an Meniere’s Research Australia Ambassador for Meniere’s Research Australia and a Cochlear Implant Buddy for Cochlear Australia.

Julieann Wallace ~ author julieannwallaceauthor.com

www.instagram.com/myshadow_menieres/

www.instagram.com/julieann_wallace_

Ménière’s Woman – when life gives you lemons

February 15, 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.

They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

“They” obviously don’t have Ménière’s disease, or any other incurable, debilitating, life changing disease for that matter. If they did, they would say, ‘I’m sorry about your diagnosis. I hope a cure comes soon. Let me know if you ever need help with anything.’

I want to say that I am sorry that you have Ménière’s disease.

I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I have had it since I was twenty-nine.

I woke at 5am one morning in early January, 2024, with the words Ménière’s Man stuck in my head. It’s a book written about Ménière’s disease, by a man. I’ve never read it. But I know that people are thankful for the information inside it.

Then I thought, where are the Ménière’s books written by women? There aren’t many.

How about WOMénière’s? WOménière’s? woMénière’s?

Sure, you may be able to glean lots of interesting information from books written by men, but let’s face it, they don’t deal with holding the responsibility of keeping the household going like women do (mostly) – groceries, cooking, cleaning, childcare (if you do have a partner who helps you with that, you are truly blessed!).

Men don’t deal with menstruation and everything that entails.

Men don’t have babies.

Men don’t go through perimenopause and menopause.

Men don’t have the fluctuations with hormones like women do.

We women have the rough end of the stick when it comes to Ménière’s !

Researchers have uncovered countless ways in which women’s and men’s bodies react differently to the same diseases, due to our hormones. There is A LOT that female bodies go through during a hormonal cycle, a stark contrast to the experience of the male body.

And so it began.

I accepted my own challenge to write a book about Ménière’s disease for women, and started on it. I figured that I was more than qualified enough to write it, Ménière’s being with me for 29 years at the time of writing this book. Exactly half of my lifetime.

Mum of three. My Ménière’s started the year before my first was born.

Wife.

Teacher.

Ménière’s Research subject at the University of Queensland’s Mind and Brain Institute.

Gentamicin to destroy the vertigo after 9 years of trying prescription medicines, herbal medicines and other alternative treatments.

Cochlear Implant to restore hearing.

Ménière’s Research Australia Ambassador who sits in on Teams meeting with Ménière’s researchers in Australia.

It was my honour to pen this book to help others. To describe the road travelled before others going through the same things.

To encourage.

To understand.

To give insight.

To give tips on surviving the Meniere’s jungle.

To say it’s okay. We’re in this together. You’re going to make it through.

To give hope.

I have put countless hours of medical research into Meniere’s Woman, and reading anecdotal stories by women and questions they ask on social media.

Plus my own experience.

It’s time to honor us. Women with Ménière’s .

On the pages you’ll find tips, hints, research, personal anecdotes, secret women’s business, pregnancy, motherhood, grand-motherhood, understanding, inspiration and mindset, self-care, a period and Meniere’s symptoms tracker and a Ménière’s Management Plan, plus lots more.

And because this is your book, add your own stamp and style. I have left blank pages for your to glue/tape in clippings, inspirational verses or images that speak to you in some way, or write them in. Be creative. Be you.

Here’s a peek at inside the book. Ménière’s Woman. Honoring you. xx

You can grab a print copy at any online bookstore. But here it is at Amazon if that is easier for you: https://www.amazon.com.au/M%C3%A9ni%C3%A8res-Woman-when-gives-lemons/dp/0645158194/

The eBook is ready for a 1st March release on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/M%C3%A9ni%C3%A8res-Woman-when-gives-lemons-ebook/dp/B0CV74SZDM/

Profits from the eBook and Print book will be donated to Ménière’s research, as all of my Ménière’s books are. I don’t publish Ménière’s books for personal gain, but to help others.

Let me know what you think of the book if you purchase a copy. And, I hope that it helps you beyond what you thought it could. xx