So I had a pretty unsuccessful appointment with the ENT, and frankly should not have been surprised. Despite having some losses in the low frequencies (10-15 decibels) over the last 2 months, because I am not a hearing aid candidate and can understand people talking to me, of course they say "nothing is wrong with you". If that trend continued I would be deaf in 2-3 years,to put things in perspective, but they could care less.
They could also care less that the losses are breaking my heart and isolating me from music, and that my hyperacusis has kept me in earplugs everywhere and more or less housebound. I told them this that I really needed help and that something was really wrong with me, and that I was essentially disabled. But they dismissed hydrops and all of the other valid suggestions I made, because I wasn't a supreme textbook example; they didn't even know or consider what 75% of the things were that I was suggesting. Didn't even bother to say "hmm, maybe we should do a CT scan, an ABR, etc".
Even my earplugs are a damned curse. Putting them in hurts my hearing, having my voice and vibrations echo back at me through occlusion hurts me, and it takes very little of either to set me off. And they blow off the idea that these devices could hurt me. So I am up against the wall again as to how I should even protect myself.
It's also really scary when the ENT admits that I know more than him, when all I do is google very simple concepts and try to understand the connections between variables that one in middle school could easily learn. And then they accuse me of being autistic or OCD, saying that my fixation on the topic is highly unusual and not ok. Of course it's ok! I don't want to have to kill myself from going deaf or losing sound, I don't want to end up in the hospital again because of my other health problems, and I want my happiness and stability back (I barely have any left to spare).
So, the end result was them not being able to help me, saying that my ears are working fine (and who cares about the losses or the 10 db fluctuations every week? You're fine!!!). All they say is for me to go find a psychiatrist again because it is a behavioral problem, that I am causing the problem for being so obsessed with this. It's the same cycle of 'logic' from another ear doctor that got me into the psych hospital last May, where everything I said was considered delusional, even if I was having terrible headaches and nearly passing out.
So, this is the final time I will ever see an ENT again. They truly know close to nothing about ears (if someone without any medical training knows more than them), and when they are presented with an unusual case, they just call you c**zy. I don't have severe tinnitus, but now I can start to understand the frustration that so many of you here probably go through every time you hook up with the medical community.
This is personal advice but, for anyone here who is new to T or ear disorders, please go straight to a neurologist or a neurotologist (first the latter) to get a sound medical examination for your ears. You will be disappointed and not taken seriously by the local ENT down the block, in the vast majority of cases.
They could also care less that the losses are breaking my heart and isolating me from music, and that my hyperacusis has kept me in earplugs everywhere and more or less housebound. I told them this that I really needed help and that something was really wrong with me, and that I was essentially disabled. But they dismissed hydrops and all of the other valid suggestions I made, because I wasn't a supreme textbook example; they didn't even know or consider what 75% of the things were that I was suggesting. Didn't even bother to say "hmm, maybe we should do a CT scan, an ABR, etc".
Even my earplugs are a damned curse. Putting them in hurts my hearing, having my voice and vibrations echo back at me through occlusion hurts me, and it takes very little of either to set me off. And they blow off the idea that these devices could hurt me. So I am up against the wall again as to how I should even protect myself.
It's also really scary when the ENT admits that I know more than him, when all I do is google very simple concepts and try to understand the connections between variables that one in middle school could easily learn. And then they accuse me of being autistic or OCD, saying that my fixation on the topic is highly unusual and not ok. Of course it's ok! I don't want to have to kill myself from going deaf or losing sound, I don't want to end up in the hospital again because of my other health problems, and I want my happiness and stability back (I barely have any left to spare).
So, the end result was them not being able to help me, saying that my ears are working fine (and who cares about the losses or the 10 db fluctuations every week? You're fine!!!). All they say is for me to go find a psychiatrist again because it is a behavioral problem, that I am causing the problem for being so obsessed with this. It's the same cycle of 'logic' from another ear doctor that got me into the psych hospital last May, where everything I said was considered delusional, even if I was having terrible headaches and nearly passing out.
So, this is the final time I will ever see an ENT again. They truly know close to nothing about ears (if someone without any medical training knows more than them), and when they are presented with an unusual case, they just call you c**zy. I don't have severe tinnitus, but now I can start to understand the frustration that so many of you here probably go through every time you hook up with the medical community.
This is personal advice but, for anyone here who is new to T or ear disorders, please go straight to a neurologist or a neurotologist (first the latter) to get a sound medical examination for your ears. You will be disappointed and not taken seriously by the local ENT down the block, in the vast majority of cases.
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