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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

magicshelly27: My two cents? At the end of the day, this really is a conversation best...

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

I am am earlier poster to this string from several months ago. Please assure your friend...

Posted by jbang

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

sgthappy73-- As I'm sure you probably already realize, everyone is different, so my...

Posted by jbang

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

Hey Everyone-- So it's been 2 months and 2 days since I had my tubes inserted. I'm happy to...

Posted by jbang

Hey Everyone--

So it's been 2 months and 2 days since I had my tubes inserted. I'm happy to report that most of the serious hearing issues that began immediately after tube insertion -- everything sounding muffled, complete inability to hear lower/bass tones, and constant tinnitis -- have primarily subsided and life is back to normal for me. Muffled hearing has disappeared, all of my low tones have returned, and the tinnitis now only happens infrequently for brief periods lasting a few minutes at a time. I realize that this will not be everyone's experience, but it at least has been mine.

I can't say for sure, but it seems that most of the return to normal has been the physical healing of the ear drum (I've since learned that making incisions in ear drums severely enflames them to the point where it can be 5 or more weeks until their normal elasticity returns -- something else I was never told by my ENT), while the rest of it has been my brain adjusting to the new hearing environment that's created by cutting holes in each eardrum and shoving a tube in there. So the good news is that things eventually resolved for me and the debilitating hearing problems subsided and resolved, albeit slowly.

I can't help but say, though, how angry and frustrated I still am at how totally unprepared and uninformed I was about the possibility of the complications I, just as all of you, experienced immediately after the tube insertion. I am a very thorough and cautious patient when it comes to my health, and I ask a lot of questions -- particularly when it comes to procedures that doctors want to perform on me. My ENT and I must have talked for over an hour spread across 2 different conversations about the risks and complications of tube insertion, so I really did feel prepared and informed beforehand. Yet nothing he said to me at any time even remotely resembled what ended up happening to me. In short, I was completely shut down professionally for 2 weeks. I had to cancel all of my meetings, I couldn't perform any work task that required concentration because of the tinnitis, and I was completely exhausted all of the time. Being self-employed, this was a huge, HUGE blow for my business that was completely avoidable if I had just been properly informed (I could have planned it around vacation, etc.).

And from reading the entries in this conversation, I know that it wasn't just me and that there's hundreds, if not thousands, of people a year out there whose lives are seriously impacted by tube insertions and are totally caught by surprise -- and not because of a fluke of rare and unusual complications post-insertion, but because our ENT's just didn't bother to inform us of these possible complications -- they knew; they just didn't tell us. I don't mean to suggest that there's any kind of an evil ENT conspiracy to con and fool their patients; I just think that tube insertions are such a frequent and common procedure for ENT's to perform that they frankly don't take fully informing their patients as seriously as they should.

Hundreds of thousands of tube insertions a year are performed, so it's not like this is a new problem. Yet we were all completely in the dark. That's unacceptable to me, and the ENT community should be ashamed of this. I hope someone takes note and some new guidelines are issued through the various ENT associations that exist as to how to properly advise patients before tube insertions.

Knowing what I know now, would I still have gone through with the tube insertion? Hell no.

Hope this helps.View Thread

Posted byjbang

(FromEar, Nose & Throat: Rod Moser, PA, PhD)

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

I would agree with Dr. Moser that it's probably not appropriate to advise against tube...

Posted by jbang

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

Sorry, ArgiePam. I went back and read all of your previous posts, and you've answered my...

Posted by jbang

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

So if you've had the tubes in for 3 months, how are you doing now? Still having the...

Posted by jbang

So if you've had the tubes in for 3 months, how are you doing now? Still having the tinnitis, muted hearing, and can't hear lower-pitched sound? Or has any of that improved? Or better yet, gone away? It would really be helpful to me to know these answers from you, and I apologize if you've already shared this earlier in the thread and I didn't see it.

For what it's worth, I just came from my ENT, and he did tell me that for a certain percentage of his patients (10-20%), of the subset of patients where the specific problem pre-insertion hadn't been identified, they do report problems with hearing post-insertion. For patients where the problem is obvious pre-insertion (high build-up of fluid in the inner ear, constant ear infections, etc.), he says that over 98% of them report drastic improvements in hearing. But for people like us where the insertion of the tubes was more experimental to see if our other symptoms would improve, he says that probably 10-20% of his patients report problems with hearing afterward. He said that if this percentage were considerably higher than this, he probably wouldn't be willing to insert tubes experimentally, but as long as it's this low, it's still worth a shot.

Other than this, they tested my hearing, as well, and told me that hearing in one ear has actually improved and in the other it has only slightly gotten worse (frustrating to hear this, for reasons you understand). My only reaction was to say that I was sorry that they couldn't recreate what I was experiencing in reality within their audio booth, but what I'm going through is indeed real and we need to resolve it by any means, and quickly. So I've been put on an oral steriod for a couple of weeks, as the ENT wants to be absolutely sure that all possible swelling and inflammation from the insertion has subsided, and if the hearing problems are still present at that point, we're going to remove the tubes immediately. If there's anything you know that would make this course of action a bad idea, please share it with me.

I did, by the way, mention this discussion thread to my ENT and that it sure seemed there were lots of people going through exactly what we are. He asked if I was able to learn anything from what others with these symptoms, but who had the tubes in for more extended periods, have ended up experiencing, and I let him know there wasn't a lot of follow up from folks who first wrote in soon after insertion after they had them in for awhile. So I'm really hoping more folks from this thread can follow up for this reason.

We're in this together, it appears, so I'll promise to hang in there if you do.View Thread

Posted byjbang

(FromEar, Nose & Throat: Rod Moser, PA, PhD)

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

I am actually the same person as An_243271; for some reason, my original post you responded...

Posted by jbang

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

No, we haven't discussed any options yet; I was asked to follow up with the ENT's office...

Posted by jbang

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Reply: Hearing loss after tube insertion

Dr. Moser-- First of all, thanks for replying and for maintaining your presence in this...

Posted by jbang

Dr. Moser--

First of all, thanks for replying and for maintaining your presence in this discussion that looks to date back a few years. It's very helpful.

For about 2 years now, I've had an unexplained need to contstantly pop my ears; it started in the right, and became bilateral about a year ago. It was accompanied by some mild facial pain, probably due to the fact I was contorting my face/jaw several hundred times a day to pop my ears. Hearing has always been perfect throughout (until the tube insertion), and never any issues with fluid or infections in the inner ear.

Before going the ENT route, I had work-ups by a dental surgeon (to eliminate TMJ), and a neurologist (to eliminate a host of neurological possibilities) that also tried Botox injections into several facial and scalp muscles, to no effect. Then I just decided to wait a year or so at my primary physician's recommendation to see if the issues just resolved themselves. They didn't.

So after seeing 3 ENT's, all of whom recommended the PE tube insertion, I agreed to do it. The idea of someone cutting holes in my eardrums made me hesitant, so that's why I got multiple opinions. Each of them were very cavalier about the recommendation -- 'let's throw some tubes in and see what happens' -- almost like they were recommending something harmless like taking an aspirin. Never was anything that I have been experiencing even indirectly mentioned, but after reading this discussion, it's clear that my symptoms are shared by many others with striking similarity. I feel I should have at least been warned of the possibility of all of this, but it's almost like these ENT's weren't aware of people having these kind of post-insertion complications.

But the immediate issue is that I'm completely shut down; I can't concentrate, I can't carry on conversations that require focus with my clients, I can't have meetings in restaurants, etc. -- these symptoms have totally hindered my ability to do my job. And being self employed, it could completely ruin my business if this goes on. I just want my hearing back -- I learned to put up with the ear popping and facial discomfort over time; it had just been an annoyance. But this is intolerable; I simply can't function.

Thanks again for whatever you can suggest.View Thread

Posted byjbang

(FromEar, Nose & Throat: Rod Moser, PA, PhD)

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