Currently I'm considered a moderately severe hearing loss, and since my word recognition is at 70% there is a possibility that the hearing aid will cause more of a distraction that aid my hearing. The doctor described it as my brain spending more time interpreting the words I cannot pick up and turning my attention away from the conversation. If my word recognition improves to around 90%, then a hearing aid will be considered. I will have to keep my fingers crossed!
Saturday, September 1, 2012
3rd Doctors Visit
Great NEWS everyone! My hearing has improved, obviously this is all relative. From the level that I was at the beginning of my SSHL (110 dB profound hearing loss) to today ~60 dB. Also my word recognition has improved to about 70%. I'm happy as I'm getting closer to a level where a hearing aid will be beneficial. The doctor does want to see me again in 4 more weeks to see if there is more improvement, even though he did mention that patients don't really improve past 6 weeks (where I'm at).
Currently I'm considered a moderately severe hearing loss, and since my word recognition is at 70% there is a possibility that the hearing aid will cause more of a distraction that aid my hearing. The doctor described it as my brain spending more time interpreting the words I cannot pick up and turning my attention away from the conversation. If my word recognition improves to around 90%, then a hearing aid will be considered. I will have to keep my fingers crossed!
Currently I'm considered a moderately severe hearing loss, and since my word recognition is at 70% there is a possibility that the hearing aid will cause more of a distraction that aid my hearing. The doctor described it as my brain spending more time interpreting the words I cannot pick up and turning my attention away from the conversation. If my word recognition improves to around 90%, then a hearing aid will be considered. I will have to keep my fingers crossed!
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This has been my experience with SSHL. My hearing loss and initial vertigo occurred on a weekend, so my first contact was with an urgent care PA. At that point it was diagnosed as labyrinthitis and I was given a two week prednisone prescription and some other meds for nausea and dizziness. The PA didn't seem too concerned about my condition and said the meds should help but if it didn't improve in a couple days to follow up with an ENT doctor. By day 5 my balancing was slowly improving but my hearing still had not so I contacted an ENT doctor. The earliest they could get me in was day 10 (although when I went to the appointment, they said I should have been seen earlier because of the situation and that the staff need to be trained better). Up until that point I had assumed I would recover fully, it would just take time. Meeting with the ENT doctor was my first time learning of the urgency of sudden sensorineural hearing loss and the likelihood of a permanent loss. My hearing test showed a profound hearing loss, so the ENT doctor wanted to take an aggressive treatment approach. He administered a cortisone injection in my ear, started me on a 10 day antiviral medication, and started a higher level 2 week prednisone prescription. That was this past Monday. Since this whole thing began, instead of hearing nothing out of my left ear, I've been hearing a constant ringing noise, tinnitus. After the injection and med increase, the ringing actually seemed to become more intense. When I called the doctor's office about this, they said the ringing can be a side effect of the medications but that I should continue to take them. For me it is still worth it to see if the medications can heal my ear in the long run. Today is Thursday and day 13 of my ordeal. The ringing is still pretty loud and I have not had any hearing improvement yet that I can tell. I have another ENT appt on Monday and am hoping and praying for some improvement by then.
ReplyDeleteLeah,
ReplyDeleteThe improvements will happen but sometimes we just can't notice them. For me the first two audio-gram showed improvements but I couldn't hear anything when I was in my daily routine. On the third test I could definitely hear a difference even on my every day activities.
Don't loose hope your tinnitus (ringing) and pressure will go away with time and you will be surprised how amazing of an organ the brain is as it tends to adapt to the lack of inner ear fluid balance and will compensate when you walk, to the point where you wont even notice it. I'm two months into my hearing loss and my dizziness and disequilibrium is unnoticeable. The ringing of the ears is more apparent when I have caffeine and high salt content foods. The pressure is mostly unnoticeable most of the time, but not all of the time.
Also I cant stress enough for your family and friends to be a good support group. No one really will understand how this feels until they are in your shoes, but they can help cope with this condition.
Thank you so much for writing this blog. I am on day 13 of SSHL. I woke up on 9/12 (Wednesday) with a fullness and pressure in my ear. Went to primary dr and was told eustachian tube needed to expand. By 9/17 (Monday), I was not any better and the tinnitus was roaring. I went to an ENT on that Monday and was put on Prednisone. Today is my last day on the steroid and I got an injection on Day 5 of the oral ...so I've done both. I go tomorrow for my 2nd injection and new hearing test. I don't feel like anything has changed but I'm trying not to lose hope. My hearing loss is in my righ ear and is between Moderate and severe. My word recognition is 100%. I was so hopeful that I would regain something but so far nothing has happened. Since you both are a bit further along than I am, have you noticed the tinnitus and dizziness diminish any? I feel like if things would stabilze for me, I might be able to find a way to live with this. It seems the outside noise such as restaurants, the gym, etc are the most problematic. Do either of you find anything that has helped with this? Earplugs? What a tramatic thing to happen and such a shock. Again, I appreciate your blog and it does offer some comfort and perhaps if we find things that help us function, we can share those with each other. Thanks, Sari
ReplyDeleteSari,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad this blog has helped you out. Answering your questions.
The ringing has gone down quite a bit, at the beginning it was fairly loud and distracting. Nowadays, my ear has adapted quite well to loud environments to the point I can enjoy dinner with friends and family at a loud restaurant. I'm not saying that I can hear again, just that the tinnitus and fulness do not affect me as in the initial stages.
The dizziness will go away with time, at least for me it did. I had the same concerns as you, would be ok living with the hearing loss just not the disequilibrium. Currently the dizziness is not an issue, haven't felt a dizzy spell coming in over three weeks.
My doctor told me that the best treatment for the dizziness is to force yourself to do physical activity in a safe way. This will re train your mind to compensate for the inner ear fluid imbalance.
I never did use ear plugs for my hearing, but did avoid very loud places for the first 3 weeks and gradually started my daily routine. This helped me adapt better to the gym, car traffic (during bike rides) and loud restaurants.
Hope you get better soon.