Wednesday’s appointment with the audiologist was canceled, another insurance SNAFU. At least this time they called me the day before instead of waiting for me to show up, check in, and wait for 5 minutes.
Overall no change in my symptoms. I have my second opinion next Wednesday, so I think the hearing aid test drive was premature anyway. I’m kind of hoping to hear from the new ENT that it’s time for something surgical.
I’ve fully accepted the hearing loss, so any severing of nerves or removal of the inner ear to resolve the disequilibrium, pressure, and tinnitus will be welcome news.
If you have a nerve-related surgery and wind up with any issues, gapabentin is a decent med for nerve pain or the tingling that can result from nerve stuff sometimes.
A friend of my aunt had her inner removed, she was having severe bouts of vertigo. Since her surgery she’s been fine, and was able to use some kind of hearing aid. I suspect a CROS/Bi-CROS type. Don’t know if that’s in my cards but I won’t poo-poo the idea.
Allergy testing this morning for 23 different things. The only thing that lit up immediately was dust mites. None of the trees, grasses or other green stuff here. I was pretty surprised. Ears looked fine, though they still have the occasional fleeting pain and tinnitus. Next step is to try some oral sublingual tablet for the dust mite allergy.
I am already far happier with this new ENT. The previous one was only focused on my hearing loss, whereas this new guy showed genuine concern about my dizziness.
The new ENT was very thorough is explaining every bit of what has happened so far and what may happen in the next 6 months. I’m still most likely screwed but we’ll see.
He ordered a balance test, VNG (Videonystagmography) and another hearing test. I think a bit more hearing, while still broken, has returned. Anything I do hear is metallic static sounding and uncomfortable to painful. And the dizziness even after 10-12 weeks of PT has not abated at all.
So he thinks both the vestibular and cochlear nerves are damaged, no fixing that. Surgery to sever them is questionable if that would help or increase the problems.
So 6/30 I’ve got back to back appointments line up for the tests.
A couple days before the VNG test I had my initial visit with the neurologist. That went well, they confirmed the MRI doesn’t show anything, and put me on a different blood pressure medication that can help with headaches and dizziness. I haven’t noticed any difference.
On 6/30 I had the VNG and hearing tests at the audiologist. The hearing test showed no improvement. The VNG was mostly OK, though the audiologist did note my left side “gravity sensor” was weaker than the right, which would explain the whooshing/dizziness sensation I get when I move my head. And one of the test uncovered a nystagmus (involuntary, rapid, and uncontrollable rhythmic oscillation of the eyes), so that’s interesting. She said normally in that test the oscillation stops after a few seconds but mine just kept on going for as long as she allowed it.
The nystagmus points me back to the neurologist and ENT. Fun times.
Emotionally, mostly good. There are days, especially migraine days that I’m not a lot of fun to be around. But I try to keep an even keel.
Tuesday I learned one of our dogs ruptured her cranial cruciate ligament (akin to our ACL). It hit me really hard, probably would’ve anyway regardless of my own health issues.
So now we’re planning her surgery and 16 week recovery!
We had that happen to our dog, and she subsequently re-tore it 5 weeks after surgery. Hard to keep a 3 year old dog from trying to jump on her favorite chair.
