The Future Freaks Me Out

Hey all,

This is my story with tinnitus, of which i can't seem to find anything too similar. I play as a full time touring musician (age 24) and have had some mild form of tinnitus for as long as I can remember. During 2011-2013 I started to notice my left ear would often feel full and i couldn't hear as well. Late 2013 my eardrum ruptured, I saw my doctor but couldn't see a specialist as I had to leave for tour. while on tour, i had pretty bad congestion/allergies and i developed pulsatile tinnitus. Which cleared up within 2 weeks or so. My initial T seemed worse after that. Seeing an ENT after getting home, I was diagnosed with cholesteatoma, and high frequency hearing loss in the same ear. Last December I had the cholesteatoma removed and the T seemed worse again after the surgery, which makes sense with the fluids in the ear, and since having my ossicles removed I have much more severe high frequency loss now. Last month was my first tour since the surgery, a few nights in (and right about the time allergy/cold season kicked in) my T seemed to get worse again, to the point now where its a pretty loud hissing with some really high frequency tones that come in and out, and are really starting to drive me insane. I've been reading up and can't seem to find anyone who is a musician, and also has dealt with cholesteatoma. It puts me in a tough position because my tour schedule is very active and something I love doing, but I am unsure how quickly it will worsen the T. I can already hear it over us playing. I have talked to my doctor about a potential surgery to reconstruct the middle ear bones, and am hopeful that more outside noise well make habituation a lot easier, but its gotten pretty tough. Please send any resources or support my way you can. Has anybody had experience with habituation in a profession that requires you to be around loud noise?

 

chrishoffmanphd: I know cholesteotoma. When I went in for my cochlear implant surgery, the doc had to clear up the infection (seen ... sort of - the doctor where I live didn't see it on the catscan) then work on the implant. I'll toss in a short note about one idiot guy in NJ (knew to me and maybe the practice). He thought I had an infection but wasn't sure. He consulted with another ENT and they believe I did have an infection BUT no one except a desperate nurse found my file some time later and thought it slipped through the cracks. I wasn't notified until later and the ENT here was a dope. I think my life was built on cholesteatoma - seriously.

Finally, a poster (you, chris) is writing in a language I understand. Having it is fairly common for me but shouldn't be for others.

IF your doctor is able to reconstruct the middle ear bones, let me know please. My examples are so obsolete that I can't even mention them. I'd like to see the advances made since mine were all replaced, so I will live vicarious through you. Yup, what you say makes sense - reconstruct the middle ear to let sounds come in to sort of mask outside the brain noise.

You may also laugh at this and that's okay. Commute to NYC and run through the subway systems for x number of years. Working in various parts of info tech did expose me to massive noise (as did the subways and the roar of the crowd in my commute). Can't deny early in my career how loud the computer room was with huge hard drives (the size of huge records), a drum that was big and used as memory. The 3800 high-speed laser printer that was really noisy and fast when it ran. I could go on but I'm boring myself .