I’ve had some hearing improvement. Most encouraging is the return of my low-frequency (250, 500, 1000 hz) hearing to pre-hearing loss levels.
Continued after the jump…
Unfortunately, I’ve only seen moderate improvement at 2000, 4000 and 8000 hz. This is the upper end of human speech, so they don’t test at higher frequencies when evaluating patients for their ability to interact, comprehend conversations, etc.
I learned this after an audiogram last Wednesday (04/26/2006). At the time, I was uncomfortable proceeding with the in-ear steroids injection, but today I went back to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and had the first of two or three total injections. The third injection will depend on what an audiogram shows in two weeks.
I’ll be the first to admit I am squeemish about injections and needles of any sort. Some of this probably comes from the fact that it takes on average 2 sticks with a needle to find and draw blood from one of my veins. Today creeped me out a bit.
I watched on a monitor as the doctor numbed my ear drum, which burned a little at first, but decided to close my eyes for the two punctures. The first was to provide an escape route for air evacuating the ear as the steroids were injected, and the second was to actually inject the steroids. I didn’t feel much but a little pressure along with hearing some popping and scratching type noises, until the ear really started to fill up with steroids. Then it hit me! DIZZY! The steroids cooled down my right ear, but my left ear remained at body temperature. The room swam for about 120 seconds, after which I had to lie still to let the steroids seep into the inner ear. At that point I felt fine to drive and returned home to Richmond.
My mom, being very generous with her time, met me at Johns Hopkins after her morning patients and helped me with asking questions about risks and such before I signed the consent forms. I’m not sure why it’s such a big deal to me to do this procedure, but it helped greatly to have her there supporting me.
This evening I’m experiencing what I’d describe as soreness in the ear. It’s a slight pain, but mostly it just feels like the ear has been traumatized – which it has.
My mom was discussing my situation with her clairvoyant neighbor, and told her that 2/3 of people with this sudden hearing loss recover their hearing and 1/2 of the people who have injected steroids recover their hearing. Sometimes it takes a couple of months to happen. My mom’s neighbor told her I was going to be in that 2/3 and 1/2 that recover, so for now, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!