Was your hearing loss sudden or gradual?

[Tamara]

I have had a gradual hearing loss for the past 18 years or so.  Now, they tell me that my tumor could not have been growing that long (as it is only 7mm, but now that we know it was an adipose neuroma, who knows?).  I chalked it up to a noisy work environment - when a certain centrifuge was running, it would feel like someone was poking me in the ear with a stick.  Then, in sequence, I had 3 babies who all screamed in my left ear because I am right handed.  I was only diagnosed now because I got tired of being SSD in professional situations, and hoped that they had come out with a better hearing aid lately.

Tam

[Nancy Drew]

Tam,

Did you have your surgery yet?  Your sig says 6/12.  If so, I hope everything went ok.  Please let us know how everything went if you had the surgery.  Nancy

[leapyrtwins]

Nancy -

not sure Tamara is still logged in, but this link might help http://anausa.org/forum/index.php?topic=6596.msg67179#msg67179

Jan

[Nancy Drew]

Thanks Jan,

I get lost on the threads here so thanks for the update on Tam.  Glad you are hanging in there and hopefully you are being treated like a princess.  This is such a great place for support.  I am becoming more comfortable as I write and learn more about all of you.  Nice that you take time to check up on us newbies although I am getting quite a few stars above my name! 

Nancy

[Gloriann]

My initial hearing loss was sort of sudden, with a very gradual continuation.

Let me explain:

I went from a 30% hearing losss in 1974 to 100% hearing loss in 1979.

I remember in the spring of 1974 wondering if someone was turning the volume up and down on the tv, but I could see that nobody was doing that. That samne week as I drove around town, with the windows down, I could hear a lot of wind, so I would roll up the wondow, but still heard this.  I also began to hear sounds in my head when I would lie down in bed at night, when the house was quiet. These sounds reminded me of wind blowing, but it went from high to low very quickly, like someone turning the volume up and down quickly on a tv or radio.

I had just been to the airport to see someone off and stood close to jet that week and I had also just seen Elvis Presley in concert, sitting close to the stage and the music was loud. So I figured I must have had some nerve damage from one or both of these loud sounds.

I went to different doctors for the next 5 or 6 years and they all said it was nerve damage, but could not tell me why. It was not until 2001 that an MRI revealed the acoustic neuroma.

[Tumbleweed]

That samne week as I drove around town, with the windows down, I could hear a lot of wind, so I would roll up the wondow, but still heard this.  I also began to hear sounds in my head when I would lie down in bed at night, when the house was quiet. These sounds reminded me of wind blowing, but it went from high to low very quickly, like someone turning the volume up and down quickly on a tv or radio.

This sounds a little like the pulsatile tinnitus I sometimes get. In my case, I hear "rushing water"  or "ocean surf" pulsing in time with my heart rate. If I hold my finger on a blood vessel in my neck to time my pulse, I can tell the pulsatile tinnitus surges in volume with the same exact timing as my pulse rate.

No doctor I've talked to says they know what causes this. But I've read somewhere on the Internet (can't remember where) that this may be due to the tumor pressing against an artery next to the hearing nerve, inside the internal auditory canal. The theory is that the hearing nerve picks up the sound of blood rushing through the blood vessel.

Tumbleweed