I’ll get right to the point. For years the hearing in one of my ears has been close to nonexistent. Couldn’t follow conversation unless it was with one person in a quiet place where I could best position me good ear. Couldn’t hear music in stereo or record with good balance. It sucked.
I went and had my hearing tested at an ear, nose and throat clinic. Note: You can end up getting tested by a hearing aid sales group as I did at first. My doctor gave me a referral to one and I got a stripped down test and a hard sell push. I told the doc about it and he was horrified and apologised for it having slipped by him.
A different experience at the ENT Clinic where the audiologist had a PhD and gave a full standard test. Test confirmed somewhat better hearing than my age average on right ear and significant loss across frequencies on the left.
But there was also some good news. The ENT doc said the test and his examination showed I had a condition called Otosclerosis. This was good news because most hearing loss cannot be reversed but Otosclerosis can. You may ask “What is it and where can I get it?”. It’s genetic and if a parent (not sure of how far from parent still counts and if grandparents count) had it good chance child will. My father had severe hearing loss in one ear but I never knew why and still don’t know.
It is a disease in the middle ear where there is a linkage of three tiny bones (last one is the smallest bone in the body) that allows for the precise movements that transmit the signals that the brain can interpret. The disease part is that an overgrowth can occur that fuses the second bone to the third and throws a wrench into the proceedings. Somewhat of a cutdown explanation here in deference to your remaining conscious. Surgery is called a stapedectomy. Problem occurs in approximately 5% of population but most never get tested.
Surgery is done microscopically and a laser cuts the last bone out and it is replaced with a prosthesis. About a 90 minutes procedure you sleep through. Done as outpatient procedure and usually doing most activities within a week.
There is a 1% chance of loosing all hearing in the ear. Not necessarily a surgical mistake. It just can happen.
Both my result which was better than Doc was thinking and my recovery which was longer than expected were unusual. Some really wild balance related stuff that I tolerated by thinking of it as rides in some future theme park.
Bottom line is that a couple of days before my six week final appointment for exam and after test, I started a song on my iPhone, which I kept set to mono so I could hear all the sounds, and after listening for a minute I flipped the switch to stereo and for the first time in years I heard balanced stereo with full sound staging effect. Wow!
So my point here is that if you have hearing loss you should get it checked out.
I still have to see how I do with conversations beyond one to one sound. Doc said without the surgery he wouldn’t have recommended a hearing aid due to my individual circumstance but now he thought it was optional depending on how I did. For watching movies or anything in most circumstances I’m totally fine.
Plenty of YouTube stuff on this.
I had assumed loss was from concerts and rock band playing and other loud circumstances and some probably was and still is but the difference is very clear.
Only a legit hearing test can tell.
I went and had my hearing tested at an ear, nose and throat clinic. Note: You can end up getting tested by a hearing aid sales group as I did at first. My doctor gave me a referral to one and I got a stripped down test and a hard sell push. I told the doc about it and he was horrified and apologised for it having slipped by him.
A different experience at the ENT Clinic where the audiologist had a PhD and gave a full standard test. Test confirmed somewhat better hearing than my age average on right ear and significant loss across frequencies on the left.
But there was also some good news. The ENT doc said the test and his examination showed I had a condition called Otosclerosis. This was good news because most hearing loss cannot be reversed but Otosclerosis can. You may ask “What is it and where can I get it?”. It’s genetic and if a parent (not sure of how far from parent still counts and if grandparents count) had it good chance child will. My father had severe hearing loss in one ear but I never knew why and still don’t know.
It is a disease in the middle ear where there is a linkage of three tiny bones (last one is the smallest bone in the body) that allows for the precise movements that transmit the signals that the brain can interpret. The disease part is that an overgrowth can occur that fuses the second bone to the third and throws a wrench into the proceedings. Somewhat of a cutdown explanation here in deference to your remaining conscious. Surgery is called a stapedectomy. Problem occurs in approximately 5% of population but most never get tested.
Surgery is done microscopically and a laser cuts the last bone out and it is replaced with a prosthesis. About a 90 minutes procedure you sleep through. Done as outpatient procedure and usually doing most activities within a week.
There is a 1% chance of loosing all hearing in the ear. Not necessarily a surgical mistake. It just can happen.
Both my result which was better than Doc was thinking and my recovery which was longer than expected were unusual. Some really wild balance related stuff that I tolerated by thinking of it as rides in some future theme park.
Bottom line is that a couple of days before my six week final appointment for exam and after test, I started a song on my iPhone, which I kept set to mono so I could hear all the sounds, and after listening for a minute I flipped the switch to stereo and for the first time in years I heard balanced stereo with full sound staging effect. Wow!
So my point here is that if you have hearing loss you should get it checked out.
I still have to see how I do with conversations beyond one to one sound. Doc said without the surgery he wouldn’t have recommended a hearing aid due to my individual circumstance but now he thought it was optional depending on how I did. For watching movies or anything in most circumstances I’m totally fine.
Plenty of YouTube stuff on this.
I had assumed loss was from concerts and rock band playing and other loud circumstances and some probably was and still is but the difference is very clear.
Only a legit hearing test can tell.
