My Experience at House Clinic Today — Some Thoughts on Going for More Aggressive Treatment?

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.

 

That's great. I would take the injections too. Will your tinnitus go away I wonder?

 

Thanks Atlantis, I sure hope so. The doctor said he expected that if some of the hearing returned, the tinnitus would be reduced. I'll let everyone know what happens. We are obviously talking probabilities here, however I am pretty certain that the doctor I saw would not push any therapy on me unless he thought there was a reasonable chance it would benefit. I did not push them in the direction of aggressive therapy-- he said he would definitely do I what I did in his shoes.

 

Your tinnitus started two weeks ago. You mentioned in an earlier post that the NIHL could have been from a loud concert 5 months ago.

I wonder if this time window is from the onset of the tinnitus, or from the onset of NIHL.
I don't want to discourage you, but I wonder which time window is the one to take into account.

 

In my case, they are the same.

 

So am a little confused, @frogatog.
You had the steroids? You are trying to decide if you should do steroids and the injections?
Apparently, you know that your tinnitus is noise induced and that your onset was two weeks ago.

If it was me, I would go for it. You have the type of tinnitus that responds to steroids/injections. You are within the window that these treatments are effective. In my case, I didn't know anything about time-limited treatment options like AM-101, hyperbaric oxygen and injections until it was too late. You just need to be comfortable with the fact that you may spend the money, and go through the discomfort, and it may do no good.

 

I recommend trying to get enrolled in the AM-101 trial @LadyDi mentioned. It is pretty much the only other thing you can do at this point if you've had steroids.

 

Thanks at @LadyDi. Sorry I was not actually asking a question, I shouldn't have put a question mark at the end of my subject line. I was more sharing my experience and noting how differently different ENTs respond to the same thing.

At this point, the Tinnitus is not serious enough for me to consider the experimental treatments. I read what some people on here are going through and thankfully in my case, it is more on the mild side, although it can vary a bit depending on the time of the day and other factors. The combination of the hearing loss, the tinnitus, and the hyperacusis is definitely causing me to try to make some changes in my daily routine, but I think I can do it. I am going to be incredibly careful with my hearing in the future, try to adapt my behavior, hope that the treatment helps, and hope also that I do not get worse.

Thanks everyone for the advice and the supportive community! It's very helpful to read about everyones experiences.

 

@frogatog

AM-101 does not imply more than what you have already done (intratympanic injections), and has very few side effects. If I were you I will be willing to take the small risk and have the chance to further reduce or eliminate the T. You have to understand that after the acute phase is over, the chances of the T disappearing decrease very quickly. There is an AM-101 trial site in Santa Monica.

 

Thanks @InfiniteLoop, do you know the name of the trial site? I will look into it. Is there a link to a thread on this board where people discuss it?

 

This is the info about the trial site:
http://tinnitus-study.info/us-en-study-centers?pid=94&sid=359:santa-monica

Yes, there is a thread about the AM-101 participants in the Tinnitus Talk Forum. It is very easy to find.

 

@InfiniteLoop Thank you