French Study - ANs in children

[JimGagnepain]

I was wondering if anybody else experienced blackouts as a child?  I'm 61 now,  but I remember blacking out on a number of occasions as a child.  I also read this article about 5 ANs in children in France.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10378037

I'm wondering if this AN could have been growing on my balance nerve, from childhood?  The blackouts stopped, once I got to be about 10-years-old, but I'm told our bodies compensate for balance nerve issues.  Every once in a while, as an adult, I would get light-headed, but I always attributed that to standing up too quickly, or something.   My hearing loss came on gradually, and I didn't start noticing it until about 2 years ago.

I'm told that, on the average, ANs grow about 1mm per year.  If mine grew at that rate, it would be a 24-year-old tumor.  I'm just wondering about the possibility of it growing much slower than that, and perhaps symptoms didn't manifest themselves until much later.
Based on the French study, I'm wondering if there are a number of children living with small ANs.

[Jill Marie]

Hi Jim,

The annual school check for hearing detected my hearing loss in 1st grade on the AN side, no one knew it was a tumor tell I was 36.  Had the tumor removed then, 58 now.  I would say it's a safe bet that there are children with AN's and other tumors, mine was a Facial Nerve tumor.  Take Care Jill

[JimGagnepain]

Hi Jim,

The annual school check for hearing detected my hearing loss in 1st grade on the AN side, no one knew it was a tumor tell I was 36.  Had the tumor removed then, 58 now.  I would say it's a safe bet that there are children with AN's and other tumors, mine was a Facial Nerve tumor.  Take Care Jill

Makes sense, Jill.  I've also read, in this forum, about people in their 30's with 3+ cm tumors, and some in their 20's with 2+ cm tumors.