hearingblog

Here’s where it starts: I’m a 60 year old composer, living in New York City. I write music for orchestras & computers & chamber groups & soloists. It’s now late Sunday night. This is what happened last week, taken from an email I sent to my siblings …

April 4, 2008
Hi all,

I gather Mom mentioned to you some of what’s up with my hearing, so I thought I should probably fill you in with what I know.

What I seem to have is Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSHL or SSNHL), which you can read about in the links at the end of this post.

On Monday morning (March 31) I was working in my studio. I noticed that the left speaker seemed to be producing strange artifacts, weird extra pitches and buzzing, etc. A little investigation revealed that it was my left ear, not my left speaker. I first noticed the speaker problem about 9:30 or 10am, then became fully convinced it was my ear, and that it was getting worse by about 11. Called my Dr, who referred me to an Otolaryngologist (Ear Nose Throat specialist), who saw me immediately. She confirmed that nothing was blocking my ear canal, my outer and middle ear were OK, and sent me to get a hearing test which confirmed the diagnosis of SSNHL, with hearing down to something like 40%-60% in my left ear.

It’s an idiopathic condition, which means they don’t really know what causes it. Likely suspected causes are a viral infection or a “vascular event” which I think is like a mini ear-stroke. Besides loss of hearing, one of the main annoyances is tinnitus, which is more or less like having a white noise generator in my left ear 24/7. Main treatment is steroids, so the Dr put me on a short course of Prednisone, encouraged me that I’d be likely to get back at least some hearing since I came in so early with the problem.

By Thursday it was a lot worse, went back to ENT person, who sent me to an Audiologist at Columbia-Presbyterian who saw me first thing this morning (Friday). She confirmed that it’s a lot worse. My language comprehension in my left ear is now at about 0%. You speak on my left side, loudly, and I might hear a kazoo-like sound which seems to come from across the street. That’s it. However, the Doc said that the condition generally takes 3-4 days to establish itself, so it’s not unusual that it got worse over the course of the week, despite the steroid treatment. It only seemed mild at first because I caught it in 2 hours of on-set, because I’m thinking with my ears all the time. But this is likely where it was going from the start. Given the current state of things, she gives me about a 50% chance of getting SOME hearing back in that ear, and a much smaller chance of getting most or all of my hearing back.

After lengthy discussions about how there is virtually no reliable research about treatment, other than more sustained treatment with prednisone, I opted to go with a shotgun approach that takes on all the various techniques this person has been using in her practice. Which means: continue the prednisone for 5 weeks, do an anti-viral treatment for 10 days, and get 2 injections per week of steroids through the ear drum for four weeks. According to the Doc, it’s likely to take a week or two from now before I notice any improvement … if, indeed, there is improvement. No guarantees on any of this.

As someone whose career involves hearing both what’s inside and outside my head, I’m pretty freaked out. The stuff inside my head has the white noise accompaniment all the time, and the stuff outside has the white noise plus the kazoo accompaniment. Not sure what this does for upcoming concerts and commissions, but I’m continuing to work on the piece for China, planning to go in May, and on coming back to fulfill my upcoming commissions. But I guess we’ll see what I can do. Yikes

Love to all,
– Neil

Sudden Sensory Neural Hearing Loss
http://www.emedicine.com/ent/topic227.htm
http://www.utmb.edu/otoref/Grnds/SuddenHearingLoss-010613/SSNHL.htm
http://www.bcm.edu/oto/grand/111893.html

Meniere’s Disease
http://www.emedicine.com/ent/TOPIC232.HTM