Today I went to the House Clinic which is the premier ear clinic in Los Angeles. I have 40db hearing loss in my right ear at 3Khz with tinnitus which started two weeks ago.
I went to three different ENT's (including House) and I found it interesting how different the responses were. House was the only one that wanted to do aggressive treatment -- oral steroids PLUS intratympanic injection of dexamethasone. The others basically just said 'hopefully it goes away'. I found it interesting that they wanted to do the injection and basically felt that there was no downside in doing so. Other ENT's talked about the risk of a perforated ear drum, but they see a lot of people and said they have never seen it happen.
It seems like most people on these forums get oral steroids only, if that, and wait to get the injection. The injection sounds terrible and sacry, especially when you are already worried about your ears, but honestly it was not bad at all, I just had to keep my head on one side for thirty minutes. It was certainly better than an economy plane ride.
They also said that the window of treatment is 3-4 weeks, so don't give up if you are two weeks in like me.
Of course I have no idea if the treatment will be effective or not.
Anyway, I feel like the attitude of many ENT's is that if you're not basically deaf, it's not worth trying to do a lot, whereas for someone who has good hearing, losing 40db at a frequency is a big deal and even a moderate increase in the chances of fixing it is worth doing. Right now I'm feeling good I took the more aggressive steps, with backing from some really good doctors. My GP concurs we are taking the right course of action. Just something to think about if your ENT is very conservative and wants to do nothing.
I went to three different ENT's (including House) and I found it interesting how different the responses were. House was the only one that wanted to do aggressive treatment -- oral steroids PLUS intratympanic injection of dexamethasone. The others basically just said 'hopefully it goes away'. I found it interesting that they wanted to do the injection and basically felt that there was no downside in doing so. Other ENT's talked about the risk of a perforated ear drum, but they see a lot of people and said they have never seen it happen.
It seems like most people on these forums get oral steroids only, if that, and wait to get the injection. The injection sounds terrible and sacry, especially when you are already worried about your ears, but honestly it was not bad at all, I just had to keep my head on one side for thirty minutes. It was certainly better than an economy plane ride.
They also said that the window of treatment is 3-4 weeks, so don't give up if you are two weeks in like me.
Of course I have no idea if the treatment will be effective or not.
Anyway, I feel like the attitude of many ENT's is that if you're not basically deaf, it's not worth trying to do a lot, whereas for someone who has good hearing, losing 40db at a frequency is a big deal and even a moderate increase in the chances of fixing it is worth doing. Right now I'm feeling good I took the more aggressive steps, with backing from some really good doctors. My GP concurs we are taking the right course of action. Just something to think about if your ENT is very conservative and wants to do nothing.
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