Back in August I wrote about My Adventures with Asploding Toilet or how I got really, really sick and went mostly deaf in one ear for no logical reason whatsoever.
Well, I went to a top ENT guy yesterday and confirmed to me what my armchair quarterback diagnosis to be that I have Sudden Hearing Loss. (well, duh.)
It seems that for unknown reasons about 4000 people in young adult to middle age range suddenly will lose hearing in one ear. If it is accompanied with vertigo, it means that the hearing will not come back. It might improve a little or it might get worse. But the studies and observations show that no one has gotten their hearing back after this. It also does not ‘spread’ to the other ear. That is most definately a bonus.
Since mine was not brought on by virus, toxic build up of medicines, contraindications, shooting howitzers, going up to space or an infection, I am official a BIG FAT QUESTION MARK. I’ve always wanted to be a conundrum.
The VERY BRIGHT side of all this is 1) this doctor wrote the chapter in a lofty medical tome about Multiple Sclerosis 2) and I have less than a 1% chance of that horrible condition. 3) That is* most excellent news. * 4)For those of you dopers that have followed the Blog of My Life that I spew onto these pages, you will know why I am so freaking relieved about it not being something REALLY FUCKING BAD. 5) I have another appointment in January. 6) I have no pain or discomfort in this ear except tinnitus. 7) I can live with this easily. Easily. Most Freaking Easily. If I had something Worse, it would kill my mother.
I am in the range for a hearing aid, so i am to start my research into those and the wonderful world of how much they cost.
So, I thought I would share with my imaginary family (gotta take the bad with the good, I say.) and if there are any deaf or mostly deaf dopers out there who have advice on hearing aids, I would appreciate it.
Also, in the future, given my delicate hearing condition, I would appreciate it everyone TYPING IN ALL CAPS.
Well hello there Tinnitus buddy. I have no information on hearing aids as I have nerve deafness and hearing aids will not help but I am glad that they will for you.
Here is some information about [COLOR=Blue]Tinnitus[/COLOR] and hearing aids.
My wife is deaf in her left ear due to a botched surgery. I have learned if we are more than 10 feet from each other I have to raise my voice so she can hear me. Plus she uses it for an excuse to not hear what I am saying.
I’m sorry you lost hearing in your ear. That sucks. You may find that you start getting better at reading lips. I’ve been doing it since age 3. It also helps to put closed captioning or subtitles on when you watch movies.
My mother’s been doing research on hearing aids. They’re very expensive (like $5000) but since her occupation involves public speaking and interacting with her audience (she teaches and she’s also a motivational speaker) the cost of the hearing aids might be covered under some kind of vocational rehabilitation program.
Of course the voc-rehab people are idiots and it’s taking forever.
My son has a unilateral hearing loss, apparently since birth, although we only discovered it when we took him in for evaluation of his speech at 34 months. He can’t use a hearing aid, since there isn’t enough there to amplify. He can not localize sounds, because he has monaural hearing. He has great difficulty following conversation or instruction in a noisy environment. He may not hear things said toward his bad side, although he has excellent hearing on his good side. He gets very tetchy after a long day of trying to concentrate in bad hearing conditions. When he is concentrating on what someone is saying, he may look over their right shoulder, since that brings his good ear toward the sound. We find ourselves explaining all this to teachers and people he has to deal with.
His first hearing impaired teacher had had a cochlear implant, and she used a hearing aid on one side. She told us that it is hard work to keep listening and using those things, and on the weekend, when she wasn’t teaching, she would leave her hearing aid at home for the rest. She said that you have to learn to use a hearing aid, because it doesn’t reproduce sounds quite the way your own ears would, and that they have to be individually tuned to the particular hearing loss, and this can be a complicated process.
