Hi, Denise:
As the quest to determine what causes AN's rightfully goes on, I subscribe to the theory and the possibility of genetics being involved, even though no one in my family had one, to my knowledge.
I never had an ear problem my entire life so I can't see any connection there, just coincidence. When we play 'AN detective' the temptation to blame anything connected to the ear is understandable. You'll probably see cell phones, power lines, living near an airport and loud music being blamed for AN's. I seriously doubt any of these are the real culprits as acoustic neuroma tumors were known over one hundred years ago, long before any of the things often blamed for causing them were invented. Notice too that these suspected 'causes' are uniformly hearing-related. I submit that just because the AN grows out of the hearing nerve sheath doesn't automatically make hearing issues the reason for their growth, as if noise somehow stimulates them. Of course, I could be wrong.
Still, there is no harm in speculation, as long as we realize that we may never know the actual cause of AN's and that always assuming they are going to have something to do with hearing may be a mistake. That said, let the speculation go on!
Jim
