Has anyone's hearing improved - before treatment?

[Debbiemg]

My husband was recently diagnosed with a 2 cm AN, having lost most of the hearing in his right ear about four weeks ago. We have two appointments next week with doctors in Boston. In the meantime, my husband noticed a few days ago, upon waking up one morning, that his hearing in the bad ear had improved somewhat. I haven't read anything about this sort of thing  happening. He is having another hearing test today to compare it with the one done earlier in September.

Right around the time his hearing seemed to be a bit better, he began to experience numbness on the right side of his mouth, and suddenly he has a constant metallic taste. Nothing tastes the same as it did a few days ago.

We are really interested in finding out his hearing status, as that will determine what type of surgery we will go with.

[Debbiemg]

I should also add that my husband was on prednisone for about ten days, until they learned it was an AN and not an infection. But the hearing didn't improve for another 7-10 days after he stopped the prednisone.

[ANGuy]

My AN is about half the size of your husbands, I've known about it for about 3 months now, but I've had had it for 8 years or so based on my first vertigo attack.  My hearing changes regularly.  My AN ear varies from almost useless on rare occasions to "pretty good" most of the time.  I am using my terms to describe the hearing quality as I am too lazy to dig out my tests.  I had two tests about two weeks apart and there was a large difference in hearing and speech recognition documented between the two tests that show it isn't just my imagination, these is clearly a large fluctuation in my AN ear's hearing ability.

I asked the Neurotologist why this is and he said it is simply a common condition, but his neurosurgeon partner thought it was more interesting.

I didn't think to ask them your question, how will this effect which type of surgery I choose, until I was on the way home.  For now, I am WW so it will be one of the things I ask about in the future, but it's not pressing at the moment.

There is a test that checks the function of the auditory nerve specifically that I haven't had.  I think that is the one that tells them what they need to know regarding "how much" hearing you are likely to keep.  Others here I am sure have had it and can tell us more about it.

So, the first part of your question is easy,"yes", hearing can vary and change frequently and dramatically.  The second part, "I don't know" regarding how that effects your future outcomes and surgery choices.

[Echo]

At 2cm your husband should have the choice of Gamma Knife,Cyber Knife or surgery.  Gamma Knife could allow him to retain some hearing, but for how long it's hard to say.  From diagnosis to treatment roughly 1.5 years, my hearing level dropped gradually and my word recognition suffered as the AN made my hearing fuzzy.  My word recognition went from 70% to 40% to 20%.  Now at 1 year post Gamma Knife my hearing levels have remained exactly as they were pre treatment and my word recognition has improved from 20% back up to 40%.  My hearing will never return to what it was pre diagnosis, and I do expect over time to loose more.  While I can still hear sound out of my AN ear, it's not great in noisy environments.  I started wearing the Phonak BiCross hearing aid 6 months post treatment and it has been a huge benefit.  The advantage for me personally is that GK has allowed me to keep some of my hearing rather than loosing it completely with surgery. 

I can also tell you that AN's provide us with many different symptoms that can come and go or come and stay.  I did experience some numbness on the tip of my tongue and edge of my mouth several months before GK treatment and luckily for me, several months after treatment the numbness went away and has not returned.

Surgery can be an excellent treatment choice, but Gamma Knife is also an excellent alternative.
Check your options out thoroughly.

Best of luck,
Cathie