Overly reluctant doctor?

[Plane23]

Hello,

I am a 36 year old male who was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma last November. My current symptoms are tinnitus and mild to severe hearing loss on the left hand side. My AN measures 24x24x23mm.
I was referred on to an ENT surgeon who took a look at my case and decided to take a wait and see approach with another scan to be conducted in September.

From what I've read this size of AN would warrant a more immediate reaction but maybe I'm just being impatient. Has anybody had an AN of that size that they've continued watch and wait on? Would anyone recommend getting a second opinion?

Thanks.

[MarlaB]

Welcome to the club no one wants to belong to, but know you are not alone!!

Personally, I had 8 "second" opinions, until I found the one that "felt" right for me, which was to wait and see and get a second MRI in six months, and then decided what was next if it or my symptoms grew or changed.

Mine did, and I had surgery.

There are others here who have been on W&W ("watch and wait") for decades.

I trust you will discover what is best for you, your health, and your peace of mind.

Marla B

[Mark F.]

From what I have noticed it takes a lot of symptoms or a very very large tumor for doctors to act quickly.  With the size of your tumor and the symptoms being minor at the moment I'm not surprised that they are choosing to wait.  They usually want at to determine if it's growing and if so what the growth rate is.  I am a little surprised that they are waiting what appears to be 10 months for another scan.  My second MRI was only 3 months from the first one.  Mine was determined to be growing slowly and I ended up having 7 MRI's over the next couple years, with minor growth showing every single time, and symptoms multiplying as well before they finally said ok it's time to do surgery.  I chose the surgical route over the radiation route because I had read several cases where radiation either didn't work at all, or was only a temporary solution.  I felt that the surgery gave the best chance of being done with it for good.  But there are others who went the radiation path and had success that way too with significantly less recovery time.  Personally I feel my recovery couldn't have gone better.  I am single side deaf now, but by the time they finally agreed to do the surgery I had less than 10 percent hearing left in that ear anyway so it really isn't that much of change.