Hi everybody,
I thought I'd piggyback on this thread, because I'm not diagnosed either. I *am* scheduled for an MRI mid week, and starting to panic a little bit.
Basically, I had hearing loss, my GP sent me to an audiologist at the hospital, and she said I need a hearing aid (one ear only), but first needed to see an ENT for a checkup. I had that checkup last week, and the doctor was very nice and asked a ton of questions. I think most of it was nice chit chat, but now I'm replaying things in my head and wondering if he was asking for symptoms.
So he said (and showed me a model of an ear and explained it) I needed to have an MRI to rule out this ear tumor thing that happens sometimes. I don't think he used the term acoustic neuroma, just ear tumor. LOL. And then I'm scheduled to see him in two weeks for the results. If there's no tumor, I go for a hearing aid.
At first, I dismissed the idea of an ear tumor and didn't worry a thing about it. Then I decided I was curious about it and googled, and ended up reading all about this. So I've worked myself into a bit of a state, and am wondering a few things...
First, do you think it's standard operating procedure to send a new patient who needs a hearing aid for an MRI? That seems kind of expensive. Do they do that for everyone, or is there something he wasn't telling me? I'm 50, female, in otherwise okay health.
But let's review the symptoms, which now are starting to form into a jello in my head (like yikes!):
--hearing loss in one ear, pretty much deaf in the higher frequencies. This has been going on for I don't know, a couple of years maybe. For the longest time I thought people were mumbling and I was just annoyed. Then I started having difficulty understanding *some* sentences on TV. No matter how loud I turn it I can't get certain things. I can hear it (I have a good ear), but it's garbled. So I occasionally turn on closed captioning and read it. I have DVR, and at first I tried to avoid closed captioning because I was afraid I would get a lazy ear and now I have. Then I started being unable to understand a thing when I'm in the back seat of a car. Everybody up front...mumbling. LOL.
It took me awhile to "get" that it's me, not the whole world with marbles in their mouths. Oops. That's my big symptom. But now I'm thinking of others that I have basically been poo poo'ing.
--dizziness...once in awhile I just get this attack of dizzy where the room feels like it's spinning. It's over in 30 seconds and I'm fine. And it maybe happens once a month, something like that. Not regularly.
--balance difficulties...Um, I'm a clutz and always falling over stuff. A month or so ago, my doctor gave me some trazadone for insomnia (I had taken it years ago and it helped and no side effects). It about killed me, and I think my doctor thought I was being dramatic. When I would walk down the hall, I was like a pinball, crash into the right wall, then that would send me bouncing and off to the left wall and back and forth, just crashing into the walls. It wasn't funny but yet it was because it was just so extreme and ridiculous. I would bend over to tie a shoe/fill the cat bowl/whatever and almost go into a somersault. I just would lose my head and start to fall over, but luckily caught myself with my hands before any damage. And until I got the drug out of my system, I stopped bending over.
My doctor couldn't understand how I could have such an extreme reaction to a drug many use, and esp. since I'd used it before without incident. Now it's got me wondering...
But I went off the trazadone and that got better. However, I still do stumble and kind of trip over my own feet sometimes. I keep thinking that the way I'm going to die is fall and break my neck and they'll find my cats eating me or something. Seriously, it's enough of a concern that I'm a little worried about taking a tumble and breaking something other than a vase.
--for the last few months, I've been getting an earache. It's a minor earache and it comes and goes (mostly goes), but it was enough that when I was in my GP's that day, I said do I have an ear infection? And she looked and said my ear was fine. When it hurts, if I tug on my earlobe, that increases the pain. I've never had an ear infection, even in childhood. So I don't know what that discomfort is about.
--here's the one that's got me scared - over the last several months, maybe a year, I've had some incidents where this side of my face just kind of goes numb. Mostly my cheek area. It's like it would itch, but then I'd kind of scratch it and couldn't feel myself scratching. When this has happened, it was creepy beyond all creep, and I wondered what the heck? You know that horrible feeling when your hand goes to sleep from sitting on it, and it takes a few minutes to wake up, and it's like bugs are crawling? It was kind of like that, but much less intense. No bugs crawling, just slight itch and couldn't scratch the itch. And a few minutes later, it was fine. Given what I've read about facial nerve involvement, you can probably understand why all of a sudden I'm thinking back to the numb face thing, and going OMG, was that *something* instead of nothing?
I think that's about it for my "symptoms." I know, I know, wait for the MRI, and I really have no choice. But I'm one of those people who likes to worry any chance I get. ::sigh::
I have no idea if this contrast is to be used; the order just says inner auditory canal or something like that. I'm hoping they'll send me a copy of my MRIs and report so I can know the answer without having to wait for my dr appointment.
Thanks for listening, I know I'm a jabber.
