Audiograms

[Esperanza]

Hi all,

I haven't posted here for a while - just needed to take a step back from things.  So Hello again! and Happy New Year to everyone!

I was wondering if anyone had ever experienced pain on their AN side during an audiogram or knew of any possible explanation for this?

During a test recently I had a sharp 'electrical' type pain (inside my head and behind my ear) when they were first testing my deaf side with a high decibel.  I have never exprienced before (5th test during the year!).
Within 24 hours or so my tinnitus started to increase and has now gone from '6/7' on a volume control scale to '9' with some funny high pitched tones and a sort of 'generator'  noise and lots of hissing as well as the white noise that I had anyway (and was quite alright really - had got fairly used to it thank you very much!).  It is very distracting.  Generally I have coped very well with my tinnitus and this seems to have set me back a bit.  It has sometimes woken me up at night which is something that hasn't happened for months and months.  I am trying to ignore it but I hear it over everything at the moment it is very frustrating.
I have spoken to the Audiology Dept where I had the test but they could offer no explanation at all and I can't seem to find any information on what this might be.  I think this has further emphasised how little they appear to really know about these things.

Do they always test to 110 or 120 decibels if you are profoundly deaf? I would have thought if you can't hear anything at 90 there wouldn't be much point in going higher. 

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice?

Thanks,
x

[hruss]

Happy New Year to you too Esperanza!!!

I am sorry that you are experiencing such problems with your hearing!!
unfortunately, I did not have such problems!! After my last surgery I heard some tinnitus in my affected ear which was strange for me cause I was and still am with this same ear! But i even used to believe that i can hear properly with this same ear till several days later they told me that i am deaf! This noise disappeared during the months and now i can hardly hear it!! the doctors explained to me that it will stay there forever, however, and i just to put up with it!!
It was not as severe as yours however!!

I am sorry I cannot help further!

Hrissy

[Tumbleweed]

Hi, Esperanza:

120 decibels seems excessive to me. That level is generally regarded as that which causes the onset of pain in a person with good hearing. All but the shortest burst of sound at that level could possibly cause damage to those structures such as the cilia in your cochlea that may not have been damaged by the AN. That's of little consequence now, but if you are young and some gene therapy for regenerating a hearing nerve comes to market 20 years from now, it would be good to have everything else in the inner ear still working. All that said, I'm no audiologist. Perhaps 120dB tones are standard testing procedure for profoundly deaf people.

Where did you have the audiogram performed? I have had audiograms done at four different places, with widely divergent "results." The first place had a so-called audiologist who didn't even know what "frequency" and "decibels" meant. She didn't even know how to work the equipment properly. Needless to say, I asked for and got my money back. Two other places had so much background noise in the booth that results were compromised. It was only at Stanford that I felt I had a truly credible audiogram performed. You might want to consider getting your next audiogram taken elsewhere.

Best wishes,
Tumbleweed

[Esperanza]

Hi Hrissy and Tumbleweed,
Thanks for your replies.
I suppose although I am glad there appears to be no-one else who has experienced this (or has answered yet!) but it has left me even
more confused as to why this happened and its after effects. 
I had the test in an audiology dept of a major hospital so really should expect that it would have been carried out correctly but I will carry on trying to find out what I can - what you say makes sense to me Tumbleweed and that is what I am worried about, I think.

Thanks again.

[Tumbleweed]

Esperanza:

Just to clarify. The "onset of pain" I was referring to in my prior reply is only temporary -- that is, the pain only lasts until the sound level is lowered below 120 dB or removed. It is theoretically possible, however, that your increase in tinnitus is due to additional damage caused by 120 dB of sound level being piped directly into your ear. Who knows?

As for your audiogram having been taken at a major hospital, this is no guarantee that it was accurate. One of my dubious audiograms was taken at a highly respected medical facility, yet their equipment was substandard. The cabling that led to my headphones was microphonic; that is, it picked up the sound of my breathing very loudly. Therefore, the sound of my breathing masked the lower-level tones such that I couldn't hear them, leading to unrealistically poor results being recorded. At another facility, noise from the HVAC system outside the supposedly soundproof testing booth was louder than the lower-level tones, again compromising results.

The booth and equipment at Stanford, on the other hand, were virtually dead quiet. If I couldn't hear a tone, it was because my hearing ability at that level and frequency was shot and not because my breathing or the building's air conditioning/heating was drowning out the tones I was trying to hear.

The bottom line: if it's not absolutely dead quiet in the testing booth, then you and the audiologist have no idea at what threshold you can hear different frequencies. Shop around.

Best wishes,
Tumbleweed

[Tisha]

HI Tumbleweed,

I had no idea they did an audiogram at Stanford, although it makes sense.  I had scheduled my monthly audiogram here in my own city, to be performed on Thursday.  However, it's $35 and if Stanford does one perhaps I'll just save the dough and have it there.  In the e-mail they sent listing what I was going to be doing day to day, and the times, that was not in that.  Do they perform that M or T?

Thanks

Tisha   P.S.  DID they send a pack to you?

[Tumbleweed]

Hi, Tisha:

Yeah, Stanford sent a packet of info to me, with directions to the campus and, if I remember correctly, my schedule for appointments and treatments.

I'm pretty sure my audiogram was done on a Monday, so that Dr. Gibbs and Dr. Chang could evaluate it during my consultations the following day. If you haven't had an audiogram in a few months or so, I'd recommend you ask them to schedule one for you at Stanford. They do a first-rate job with it and I trust the results they came up with for me. Hopefully your insurance will cover it as part of your pre-treatment evaluation. Mine did.

Good luck, Tisha. You'll be in the very best of care. I'll be thinking of you next week.

Best wishes,
Tumbleweed