Say What?

My hearing has been a little problematic for years, but I didn’t really have it checked until 2005. I recently had it checked again at Costco, since it’s free there, and the results weren’t encouraging. Dr. Tracy asked me to get a second test done at an "official" hearing lab, and the results were the same. In the past three years my low to mid range hearing has worsened by about 20 to 30 decibels, meaning sounds in that frequency range (that of adult human speech) sound 20 to 30 decibels quieter to me than they actually are.

According to "Doc Rock," my Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor, the pattern of my hearing loss is not consistent with nerve damage caused by noise exposure, but does closely match that from a condition called otosclerosis. If I do have that, my hearing will most likely just continue to deteriorate. Treatment options include surgery to replace a bone in the inner ear (usually the stapes) with a prosthetic one, or hearing aids. The surgery, called a stapedectomy, usually improves hearing, but actually has a small chance of causing complete deafness in the affected ear (they usually do one ear at a time). It is also not necessarily a permanent fix, and so the patient often ends up wearing hearing aids later on. As for starting with hearing aids, this might be the only option if the hearing loss isn’t severe enough.

Doc Rock is having me get a second opinion from an otologist (ear specialist). I see her on Wednesday, and I’ll report back here with what she says.