Hello everyone,
My name is Dave, and I am currently elisted in the United States Marine Corps and had a few questions on where I stand with the position I am in. I need help. I resorted to this website for its wealth in knoweldge in the subject, but I am new to this whole community and such.
For staters, as standard, we Marines must pass a basic audiology test I believe semi-annually, however, this informtion is not relevant. Pertaining to my situation, I am currently deployed and failed our hearing test 5 times consecutively. I recently took a trip to the hospital to meet with an audiologist to discuss what the damage is. As I am not familiar with my hearing loss statistically, I was told it was very significant for someone my age. I am a mortarman, and typically work on the gun, therefore exposing me to very loud blasts multiplie times in a short amount of time or prolonged time exposure. I have been in this field since March.
Further, my audiologist wanted to schedule an immediate MRI to check for an IAC, here is where I worry. Im trying not to think of the worst case scenario until I have a full diagnosis, but I figured I would come here to talk about my situation as I am sort of left in the dark as of now. I suffer from very bad ringing in my ears (tinnitus) spellcheck? for the last 6 months to the point where I have trouble falling asleep. Irt is only asymmetrical (right ear) and causes my balance to be off when I get up too fast/ dizziness. My vitals/blood pressure are very healthy though. The progression of the pain has increased over a short amount of time and has only gotten worse, though I have not been at a mortar shoot in 3-4 months. Maybe unrelated, I have had nose bleeds pretty heavily recently in both nostrils, which has never occured, who knows? maybe I am just stressed out. My ear feels full most of the time and I find in more difficult to smile on the right side of my face if that makes sense, as in, it seems like it takes more effort for my muslces to do so, at least it feels that way.
In closing, I am aware that I will need a diagnosis with experts to getting a final call on what it is, but I don't know, I'm not too sure how to feel or what to make of it. ANY insight or thoughts would be greatly appreicated!
