I'm confused as far as doing both at the same time.....my doc didn't recommend doing the translab and BAHA at the same time? Anyone know why that may not be a possibility? Is it the norm to have them done at the same time or seperately?
Melissa -
sometimes it depends on the doctor. Some like to combine the surgeries if there is a need for both procedures; some like to do them separately. From what my doc has told me he doesn't
like to combine the two surgeries, but I know patients who go to his partner and they have had combined surgery.
If the patient chooses retrosigmoid rather than translab, the level of hearing loss may be unknown until after the AN surgery. I'm a good example of that. I chose retrosigmoid in the hopes of saving what hearing I had on my AN side, but I ended up (through no fault of my doctors) with SSD. So going into surgery we didn't anticipate the need for - nor did my surgeons know that I would want - a BAHA.
Having the surgeries separately isn't as bad as you'd imagine; the BAHA surgery is nowhere near as invasive or extensive as the AN surgery. My AN surgery was 7 1/2 hours and I was under general anesthesia; my BAHA surgery was about 1 hour and I had local anesthesia.
Jan
