Eighth Cranial Nerve

Inside the Imaging Tube

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Part VI
After the 20 minute hold on the gurney, I transitioned to standing. The medicine slowly flowed down the eustachian tube into my throat, leaving a mildly unpleasant taste. I needed to make several follow-up appointments for more injections while testing for hearing improvement from the audiologist. The otolaryngology department kindly printed the entire monthly calendar, showing my six upcoming appointments.

The doctor, by protocol, also needed to screen for other possible reasons for my SSHL: a brain tumor or vascular constriction of some sort. My medical imaging came in-between the office visits. 1st came the MRI of the head and neck followed by a CT of the same region. I did not delve to deep into the possible outcomes of the scans, as anything is possible when it comes to the brain.

I had my MRI scan on a Saturday afternoon at a 24 hour hospital. I gave blood to check for a certain kidney function tolerance to the contrast agent used to explore my cerebrum. Lurking around the eight cranial nerve might be an acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor compressing the hearing nerve. I only thought of my breathing in the MRI tube, as with constant pulsing tinnitus, I felt like my brain might implode as the magnets slowly imaged my head. After four passes, the technician asked me to dress. Modern medicine is so compartmentalized, that even with the radiologist right in front of me, I got the standard answer, “Wait for the results from your doctor.”

In less than 48 hours my doctor forwarded me the radiologist report: “No significant abnormality.”

Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss Treatments

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Part IV
I used Candy Crush Saga to pass the time between audiology to otolaryngology. On 20 March 2014 the doctor with the funny head mirror appeared. He asked if I complained about pulsatile tinnitus and now the dreaded SHL, sensorineural hearing loss. He reviewed the audiogram and almost shrieked at the collapse of just one ear. He asked when I first noticed symptoms, now nearly 40 days ago. I was outside the window for any treatment and he suggest I just give up on my hearing.

I asked if there was anything that could be done, or it was completely pointless and would do more damage to my eighth cranial nerve? There was a protocol for sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL), but it involved the use of corticosteroids injected directly into the cavity behind the eardrum. Another treatment involved taking a large dose of oral corticosteroids in an attempt to reduce swelling of the hearing nerve embedding inside my skull. After a few minutes of pleading, the doctor decided to combine the treatment into a glorious cocktail to recover hearing.

Another part of the audiogram I had ignored earlier, the SRT and speech discrimination, now also became very important. My right ear scored 5 dB for speech recognition threshold (SRT) while my left needed 45 dB to understand. Who knew the words hotdog, baseball, and cowboy could make the difference from hearing and deafness. Using amplification, my speech discrimination score was 100% in the right ear, but just 60% in the damaged left ear. I had mentioned to the doctor that my left ear was so broken, I may never gain its use. The corticosteroids regiment success or failure would teeter on whether I recovered my damaged hearing or could at least understand more words at amplification.

Eighth Cranial Nerve Explodes

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In early 2014 something happened in my brain. I woke up to a pounding noise, of unknown origin. I tried to ignore it.

Background
In December 2013 while watching some recording from my Lenovo HTPC, while muting the HDMI source, I continued to hear something like a swooshing sound. I looked all around the room for a sound source, and located the sound origin, the internal 500 GB hard drive. The Lenovo desktop made the typical rotating drive sound, but I started to interpret it as an ever so slightly pulsing white noise. It was a curiosity, but in retrospect the sign of a catastrophe to come.

I had some other heath issues, primarily an abyss behind my left ear that needed an incision and drainage followed by secondary intention wound care. By 22 January 2014, I was all healed up, ready to go back to work on a major 800 SQ FT dark green new home addition. I had started the drain, waste, and vent plumbing along with the rough electrical work.

Part I
On 8 February 2014 the slight hard drive inconsequential noise, just a curiosity in nature, became a frightening freight train of surging intensity, taking over my senses. I thought I could ignore it. Maybe the sound was a result of a middle ear infection, so I went to my doctor, who understood my complaint, took out a strange tuning fork, slapped it on his hand and placed the cool steel base against the back of my neck. The doctor asked what I heard, and all I could sense was cold. He asked if I sensed a hearing deficiency, and with the pulsing noise, could not distinguise the tuning fork from my noise. I came to discover later I had a eighth cranial nerve on my left side “explode” in my head, and my auditory system in attempt to recover hearing, began interpreting the labyrinth of blood vessels as actionable sound.