ANA Discussion Forum
General Category => Hearing Issues => Topic started by: sarahinPA on August 19, 2011, 01:51:19 pm
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Hi everyone!
Today is 3 weeks post surgery! I'm feeling pretty
Good with slight discomfort at the incisions site , but overall feeling good.
I am having the numb/ full feelIng in my ear, the doctors say
This is normal, but I was curious about others experience. Does this feeling go away? The tinnitus is annoying, but manageable, and the ssd isn't all that bad for me in my
Day to day life which is reassuring because this was something I was very nervous about!
So your thoughts and experiences with the full feeling in the ear would appriciated! Thanks!!!
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Hi Sarah .....
Glad to hear that you are feeling well now. You've had quite a time.
I'm a little bit puzzled by your signature that says you have some hearing left. Perhaps you simply have not updated it recently. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but it was my understanding going in to my most recent surgery that a translabyrinthine approach always results in total hearing loss. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translabyrinthine_approach
Almost hate to say this but the numb/full feeling you have in your ear is quite possibly the sensation you have to being totally deaf on that side. If so, it will always be that way. Eventually (unless you get a bone anchored hearing device) your brain will adjust to no sound input from that side and you may or may not find it to be a problem.
So glad your tinnitus is manageable. For some it is very debilitating.
Best thoughts. Clarice
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Hi Sarah - glad you are doing well! ;D
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Clarice, thanks for your post.
It is really a strange thing, but I can hear some things on my an side. I can hear directions of noises, people talking on all sides of me, I can hear when I rub my fingers together next to that ear, and right out of surgery I could her the doctor Wisper into the an side. But, I can't hear a phone up to my ear. The doc says I'm deaf, and I say, if this is what it is to be deaf on one side, I can handle
It! I can also hear when I lay down on my good ear, exposing only my an side, it's defiantly
Much much lower, but I can hear the tv and hear my boyfriend talking! It could all be the vibrations from the good ear, but I'm really not complaining!
Just the numb feeling is annoying, I guess if that's all I have to learn to life with, I can manage, I was just wondering if it starts to go away once the body begins adjusting more to the trauma.
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Sarah,
I had retrosigmoid, which in theory has potential for hearing preservation, but my surgeons didn't attempt to save hearing, because it was already greatly diminished with no word recognition. Like you though, I don't find SSD too bad, I can tell most noise directions (although I have failed miserably the "find the headset of the cordless phone" test) and I generally don't have trouble hearing people talking. I can't hear my children whisper in my AN ear though. I think that the reason why I am doing so well with SSD is because my hearing on the other ear is above average, as my hearing test has shown. So I think it compensates for the loss on the AN ear. This could be the case for you too. Also, there is something that is called "bone conduction", which makes us think that we hear sounds on the deaf ear, when in reality the sound is conducted on the other side.
I have been following your thread and I am glad you are doing better now.
Marianna
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I don't know if the numb/full feeling in your dear ear goes away, exactly, (my neurotologist told me it was the "feeling" of deaf). However, I can say that, at least for me, I got used to it to the point that I don't even notice it anymore. If I really think about it, I realize that its a little fuzzy feeling, but day to day, I don't notice it at all.