Nerve Damage Tests?

Hi, Clutching at straws here in hope...
I was just wondering if anybody knows if there are tests that they can do to see if the hearing nerve (im really not up on my biological names)....or nerve that makes your brain hear sound would be damaged?
Im still stuck on wondering if it was the spinal anesthetic i had in labour maybe what caused this? :-/
As my GP said now that i have reduced my BP meds and the noise is still there...it cant be medicine related...

Still so scared :-(
Many Thanks.

 

@Kay86 A good test to see if there is a faulty connection with the auditory nerve or the connection between the brain and the ear is an ABR test, which the full name is an Auditory Brain Response Test. This test is usually done on infants since they can't be given Audiogram tests because you yourself have to give a response to what you hear in the test. The ABR test helps the person providing the test see the results themselves.

 

This is a logical fallacy. There are processes in biology which are reversible and some which are not. Ototoxicity may be reversible in some cases; in some cases not.

Reversible example: Aspirin "overdose" in animal tinnitus testing:

Source: Auris Medical (www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1601936/000119312514253454/d684505df1.htm)

Cases where ototoxicity is generally not reversible:

Source: Autifony Therapeutics (www.autifony.com/autifony-hearing-acute.asp)

Your BP medication would probably fall in the 3rd category (loop diuretics). It is - therefore - certainly possible that your doctor caused your tinnitus (at least the argument that "cessation of medication is proof of causation" is invalid). Ototoxicity is serious business and there is a certain percentage of doctors who are simply not up to the mark when it comes to knowledge of medication and side-effects: hypertension should only be treated with medication when all other attempts have failed e.g. work-outs and sports; diet change; weight-loss.

Example of biology where processes are reversible: cholesterol levels i.e. sports and diet change will reduce your marker levels.

Example of biology where processes are irreversible: a person breaking his/her arm by being run over by a car; yes, you guessed it: running the person over again in reverse will - generally - not heal the broken arm (bad joke, I know).

A further note on ototoxicity and nerve damage. We are born with only so many nerve cells. Unlike other cell types (e.g. skin cells), nerve cells do not multiply. Another complication in biology is scar tissue (which prevents healthy tissue to develop in its place). When a nerve is dead, it is gone for good. There are two existing technologies in medicine which can influence that outcome: cold laser therapy and stem cell therapy.

Ototoxicity can be observed on an audiogram (best solution: high frequency test incl. 16 kHz).

My opinion - for what it is worth - is that a spinal anesthetic is only a problem when leakage occurs.

Lastly, if you are not - like most patients - in a position of knowledge to confront your doctor, print this and show it to him/her. In addition, I personally find it somewhat sad that the above knowledge comes from a person with a background in finance rather than a background in medicine. I wonder if a degree in medicine can be acquired via a vending machine these days.

attheedgeofscience
10/JAN/2016.