Middle Ear/Conductive Hearing Loss Tinnitus... Can Someone Help?

Hi guys.

Hope you're well.

I had mild hissing tinnitus before my surgery which remained after having two of my three middle ear hearing bones removed as part of Cholesteatoma surgery. The stapes bone in still in place though.

So I have conductive hearing loss and not sensorineural hearing loss (which is the common type associated with hearing loss and Tinnitus).

Basically, I am going to be undergoing reconstruction surgery next year to replace the bones that were removed, they will be replaced with titanium prosthesis which will recover my hearing at close to my good ear (assuming the surgery goes well).

Now my logic tells me that reconstructing the bones and thus restoring most of the hearing should get rid of my tinnitus. But as many of you on this forum know, tinnitus behaves in weird ways.

I am trying to find out the chances of the tinnitus going away once the hearing is restored to close to what it was before.

Does anyone have any insight into middle ear/conductive hearing loss tinnitus?

Any information on this from anyone would be very very much appreciated....

 

I know it's hard but I think you're just going to have to wait and see what happens. So much of this will be down to your particular anatomy and genetics. In general we should expect things which improve our hearing to decrease our perception of tinnitus, but this isn't necessarily always true (and severity of tinnitus doesn't necessarily relate to severity of hearing impairment; we have plenty of people here like me with basically good hearing but moderate or worse tinnitus -- and there are many people with severe hearing loss and little to no tinnitus).

 

I would think that it would be good. At least, it would probably lessen greatly. I also have conductive loss and my tinnitus is pretty bad. Are you using a hearing aid? If so, what kind do you have? I'm trying to figure out which is best for this kind of loss.

 

Yup, I have.
You stand a good chance of recovering most of your hearing. In your case, since you don't have SNHL, you also have a good chance of getting rid of your T.
For a stapedotomy (which I did), stats show about 50/50 chance of getting rid of T.
As you know, it's hard to predict what will happen with your T. I hope it goes away. It didn't for me, but I have SNHL too, so my chances were pretty low.
One unexpected side effect of having a titanium prosthesis in the ear is that you need to watch our for MRIs... my prosthesis is rated for 3 Tesla, but I don't know how comfortable I feel about it.

Good luck.

 

I'm sorry to hear your tinnitus is bad. I am currently not using a hearing aid as I'm going to wait for the reconstruction surgery. I have heard that some high end hearing aids like the Phonak ones can be good for conductive hearing loss.

What type of conductive hearing loss do you have, is it an issue with the middle ear bones or eardrum or something else? As most things regarding conductive hearing can be corrected with the right surgery. For example there is surgery for the middle ear bones and different surgery for the ear drum.

Do you know what caused your conductive hearing loss? It's not something that is caused by loud music or age as far as I know.

 

I'm glad to hear this and hope you're right. From the journals I've seen, you're right, complete remission/elimination of tinnitus after stapedotomy is around 50%, some studies show around 65% even. And even for the people who's tinnitus wasn't eliminated with the surgery it is improved significantly. I guess people a lot of people don't know about middle ear/conductive hearing loss tinnitus when they say "there is no cure for tinnitus". I'm sorry to hear you had SNHL too which meant that the stapes surgery didn't result in a remission/big improvement in your tinnitus. On the bright side, there are a lot of developments on the way for inner ear related hearing loss/tinnitus. From what I've read, stem cell therapy seems to be the most promising.

The biggest issue with my tinnitus is that it reacts/gets louder when exposed to sound, I have been told this is actually a form of hyperacusis and I hope the surgery addresses this element of things too as it is really annoying.

 

This is the main thing I hate about Tinnitus. There seems to be a lack of cause and effect. Like you said, some people with severe hearing loss have no T and others with perfect hearing have super loud T. From what I've seen and read though, generally, like you said, improving hearing loss should lessen T.

 

Thanks. Otosclerosis has had a field day with me indeed and didn't just damage the middle ear: it also wreaked havoc in the cochlea. It seems to make sense as my hearing loss is in the high frequencies, right were O attacks (the base of the cochlea).

I did regain pretty much all of my hearing in the low frequencies, so I don't regret the surgery in spite of its challenges.

Good point indeed: I had horrible H before surgery. Now it's very mild. So it looks like my middle ear was playing an important role in H symptoms. I hope you'll get that sorted out too. H on top of T is like adding insult to injury.

 

This is really interesting. So you think that my T reacting to sounds and getting louder around sounds is a form of hyperacusis?

Also, how do you cope with your tinnitus now? Do you wear a hearing aid?

 

I don't know. I was just giving my experience. Since you don't have your middle ear bones anymore, I'm not sure it's a similar case.

Yes I have a hearing aid. I don't cope particularly well. I try to stay busy.

 

I don't have the slightest clue what is causing my loss and it's been over 18 months. I keep hearing different things. Most of my hearing is still barely holding in the normal range, so no one is too concerned...well except for me. My conductive hearing is fluctuating so that adds another layer. I was born deaf in the other ear so yet another layer.