Hi Pascale,
YEs, that's what doctors say. In fact, Dr Chang was the only one at the time of my pains to suggest it might be the nerves stretching due to some tumour swelling. There are so many nerves involved there, it makes sense that if they are being stretched, that they would act up. At least that's what I think. Ear infection? Well, maybe, I don't know. But a short sharp pain behind the ear and down my jaw would not be an inner ear infection to me, that's the kind of pains I had. I have to say, I had the same dismissal by doctors here. One of them even suggested that the black area within the AN (necrosis) had nothing to do with necrosis... oh right.
I tend to think that doctors don't believe if it isn't scientifically proven. For example you'll find that a lot of them don't believe that there are issues to face after CK or GK. That 'one can go back to normal right after it'. A lot of us can testify that that is not necessarily so. There certainly are effects from treatment, even if it is a so called 'non-invasive'. How many of us have come up against brick walls when it comes to relating cognitive issues, fatigue, temporarily increased symptoms, less stress tolerance, etc? A good few I would think.
frustration is part of this, a lot of the time. That's why this forum helps us, and greatly helped me, in dealing with post-treatment (and any other) 'stuff'. We understand each other and have been there. It might not necessarily be scientific, but we can relate and most likely one of us has had something similar to relate.
All this said, no treatment is without effects, certainly not surgery, but neither is CK, GK or watch and wait! One has to decide which treatment option one is most comfortable with, and go for it. Your tumour sound small enough to give the option of exploring avenues and decide what YOU want. This isn't an easy thing to deal with, we all freaked out by something or other. But we all also remembered that we are all different, and we all react differently. I had HUGE fatigue and cognitive problems for the first 6-8 months after CK, but they were lessening all the time, and I knew they were temporary. Others had no problems at all. No idea why, maybe tumour size / location, maybe their overall fitness level, maybe the moon was on the descendant, or somebody was watching over them. Whatever the reason, that is something we can't do very much about, and will be there regardless of what treatment one goes for.
The end result for me is that CK worked, I felt comfortable with it, have absolutely no regrets and would do it all again if I had to. I lost extra hearing, but 5% is not that much, particularly, as in my case, were hearing loss didn't make a difference, I was already down a big chunk so a bit more or a bit less made no odds to me. HEaring preservation wasn't a reason for me to choose CK.
Ok, sorry for the long rambling post, hope I didn't over do it!
Keep asking questions and you'll get more comfortable with this as time goes on.
Ciao, Lorenzo
PS, nce pic of you!
