does anyone think?

[jazzfunkanne]

I have heard  that something major that happens in our life can maybe start AN to grow, i have lost both my parents in the past , and had a miscarriage i am now beginning to wonder if this is true, can you all think back to something major in your life that has maybe tiggered this to happen? i may be wrong but its worth thinking about.

[Brendalu]

That is really something to look into. I have had some major things go on in my life, but no one ever suggested that the AN was caused by them!  It gives us something else to think about.  Thanks for sharing.
Brenda

[Soundy]

I had heard something like that but if it were true I would think that ANs would be more common

not saying it doesn't have some truth to it ... I had a severe concussion followed with almost two weeks
in the hospital due to uncontrolled  vomiting and amnesia ...after I came home I had ringing in my ears
that at four was dismissed by most until I was around 11 or 12 and read an article on tinnitus ... new
doctors said the knock to head could have started the ringing and now my mom thinks it started or
predisposed me for an AN ...

my doctor thought that stress and or hormone rushes may have contributed to the fast growth spurt mine
took after sitting there being watched for 3 years without growing then growing rapid enough to be
scary over a six month period... I had started having 10 or 12 day long periods with heavy flow stopping
for maybe a week then starting again...hormones were high then would drop ... I was losing blood volume
because my body couldn't replace what I was losing...as the surgeon put it I was bleeding to death a
month at a time... hormone therapy didn't help and had to have hysterectomy a month before the MRI that
showed the super growth spurt of my AN

[jazzfunkanne]

I have heard that hormones play a part in growth as welll, esp with expecting mothers, i suppose we could debate all day on this.

[leapyrtwins]

Wow, that is an interesting theory - and IMO it makes a lot more sense than the cell phone or the fish hatchery theories 

I can think of many major events in my life prior to my AN diagnosis (I'll spare you the details), and I'm sure others could do the same.

I've never heard this theory, but like Soundy, I think if there was any truth to it ANs wouldn't be as rare as they are.

Jan

[jazzfunkanne]

could be we all relate to stress in different ways, i dont know if we will ever know the answer

[lori67]

I think that if AN's were caused by major stressful events, we'd all have one!  Or more!  I know I'd probably be dead by now!

I blame mine on a combination of genetics, bad luck, pregnancy hormones and having radioactive iodine treatment for an overactive thyroid.  And maybe growing up in NJ didn't help either.  Hmmm....maybe that pet goldfish I had once added to the list too, but for fear of this thread being relocated, I'll leave that alone.

Lori

[Jim Scott]

Anne:

Thanks for the conversation-starter but I find this hypothesis difficult to accept, although it beats the cell-phones-cause-ANs theory.  Everyone experiences stress of some kind and as others have stated, if stress were a 'trigger', ANs would be ubiquitous.  During my 65 years, I've experienced many life events that were definitely stressful; including job loss and resultant financial problems that threatened our lifestyle (none too luxurious to begin with), a sick baby that had to be hospitalized and undergo surgery (he recovered nicely) a wife with ongoing medical problems, a near-fatal auto accident (in 1989) and so on.  I've lost both parents and so has my wife.  Friends have died unexpectedly and I still miss them.  Yada, yada, yada.  I'm certain most of the folks on this board could list similar stressful events in their lives.  Despite all this, my AN didn't manifest itself until I was 63, after I had retired and yes, I was very much enjoying my retirement, as was my wife.  No boredom or tension at home and a full life in every way that matters to us.  My surgeon commented that my AN was 'probably' growing for close to 15 years.  It finally grew large enough to manifest symptoms and motivate me to seek treatment.  I see no real connection to 'stress' and the unchecked growth of the Schwann cells of the vestibulocochlear nerve.  This is obviously a case of blaming 'stress' for whatever can't be adequately explained by medical science.  Happens all the time.  It is human nature to want concrete answers to vexing problems and someone is always around to offer one, often sans real evidence.  Hence, the dubious cellphone-AN theory, fish hatchery-AN theory and now, that old stand-by: 'stress'.   

I'm not a doctor or scientist , just another AN patient - and I'll stipulate that this theory may yet prove to have some validity - but I have my doubts.  'Stress' is real, as we all know, but while it's a fact that stress has negative effects on our health, I suspect it is becoming a catchall culprit for problems (such as acoustic neuromas) for which the medical community can't accurately pinpoint a cause.   

Jim

[CROOKEDSMILE]

If AN's are stress related then my husband must have a basketball size one by now after being my support person/caretaker the last 15 months. Maybe an MRI should be ordered STAT~
Angie

[Kaybo]

Even though it is an interesting theory, I can honestly say that I had no MAJOR trauma before my AN - I guess you could say I have had my fair share now!!    Truly, I was just the happy go lucky high school, college, first job & then marriage kid...so nope, really nothing too stressful even (unless you count some of those honors classes I took!).

K   

[Omaschwannoma]

A "medical intuitive" wrote that VS's develop because our lives are not in balance and we somehow are not wanting to "listen"!? 

Now that's gotta beat all for "why" some of us are "blessed".  I for one will not believe such jibberish, that "I" caused my tumor by not wanting to listen or that stress in my life somehow caused my DNA to "burp".  Like Lori, I too should be dead as I've been in some really bad situations that quite honestly I'm not sure how I survived them! 

It doesn't pay to look for the excuse or the reason why difficult things in our lives happen or to blame someone or something.  Stuff happens folks, it's how we deal with this stuff that truly matters.  With the good comes the bad, up has a down, left has a right, night has a day and our lives have good and bad in them, love and hate, it's the balance of life and one doesn't go without the other.  How in the world would we know happiness if we didn't know sadness?  What would our lives be like if we never ever experienced sadness?  Would we really understand what happiness even is?  I don't think so, that is why you must be greatful for the bad, the sad, the down, the night, etc.  The negatives in life have nothing to do with punishment. 

Okay, I'm leaving the podium.....for now. 

[Kaybo]

Arushi~
Wonderfully stated!!  I try to implant that in my children when they are so upset that something "bad" happens - I tell them we wouldn't know the good or the beautiful if we didn't have the bad or ugly!

K   

[Omaschwannoma]

Kaybo,

   Thanks for doing a great job raising our future!

[MKLady]

I don't know.  THat is something to think about.  They told me I have probably had mine 5-10 years.  Ten years prior, my former husband and my son's father comitted suicide.  It was a very rough period in our lives.  Not the only tough time but definitely at the top of the list.  It actually crossed my mind when he said 10 years that there might be a correlation.

That being said, I had no symptoms until sudden hearing loss last November ( a year ago).  The previous October I had changed my land line phone service over to a mobile phone so I spent much more time on the cell phone the year prior to symptoms.  That made me wonder if the tumor had been mostly dormant all these years and the cell phone made it start growing at an increased rate.

Susan

[leapyrtwins]

Personally I go with the theory that ANs (like sh*t) just happen.

Maybe I should get that printed on a t-shirt or something.  The AN part, not the sh*t part - that's already been done 

Jan