New Member / Otosclerosis

Hearing Loss
#1

Been on the forum for a while and decided to join. There is a wealth of knowledge here.
I will be getting my first hearing aids next week. I was diagnosed with otosclerosis around 30 years ago and had a Robinson Bucket installed in my right ear 25 years ago. I now have some degree of loss due to age but it is primarily from the disease. There is a long history of this in my family.
Here are the test numbers:

Freq Left Right
250 -20 -10
500 -30 -5
1000 -35 -5
2000 -70 -30
3000 -105 -65
4000 -110 -70
8000 -115 -70

This has been such a slow progression that I didn’t realize that I was not hearing the high freqs.
I would like to hear from anyone who has had a stapendectomy and now using hearing aids as well. Just wondering what to expect.

Thanks

#2

FYI, I’ve fit several patients with hearing aids after stapedectomies, and they’ve done just fine. I can’t really see any noticeable difference in their satisfaction levels. Come to think of it, I am fitting a set of BTEs on a lady this coming week who had stapedectomies in both ears. I’ll be sure to post her initial response here.

#3

Thanks Mark
I will be looking forward to her result. I have also contacted a couple of relatives who have post stapendectomy hearing aids to see how they are doing. No replies yet as they live in another state.

Dan

#4

I have suffered with otosclerosis as well and have had a stapendectomy performed on 1 ear. The results of the surgery showed improvements in the ear but not the results we were hoping for. I was fitted for hearing aids about 8 years after the surgery. It took me a long time to admit that I needed them. Life is a lot easier now that I don’t have to work so hard to hear in daily life situations.

The first adjustment to having the aids was probably similar to many other people. The highs sounded loud and harsh. I had the aids set back for less boost until my brain adjusted to the new normal. Over time, my brain has adjusted to having high frequencies in the mix again. I can’t imagine going back without the aids now. When I have the aids out, speech in particular is so difficult to process.

Overall, the aids have been very positive for me and have made my life a lot easier. My family has noticed a big difference as well.

Hope this helps.

#5

Another thing to consider is if/when you get hearing aids, you might want to ask if the particular company that makes your hearing aids take into account conductive losses. Some manufacturers treat a conductive loss differently when it comes to amplification than sensori-neural losses. Phonak has instructed me in the past to enter bone conduction thresholds if there was a conductive component because it made a difference in how the hearing aid amplified. The software treats the two losses differently but if it didn’t know there was a conductive component then it will treat the loss as a strictly sensori-neural one which may result in incorrect amplification.

#6

DFPope:

FYI, I have had 3 stapedetomies (R by Perkins about 1985, L by Robison about 2001, R re-do by Roberson about 2002). I started wearing HAs (initially R only) about 1981. Otosclerosis runs in my family. As you probably know, it favors females, but I am male. Also, as has been explained to me by MDs, otosclerosis also often (usually?) causes some nerve loss in addition to the conductive loss.

I guess I’ve been lucky in that none of my 3 operations involved any big problems. On the other hand, the stapedetomies didn’t restore my hearing as much as I might of hoped. My right ear, in particular, has always been my worst.

A question for others with otosclerosis and/or are familiar with that disease: Do folks with otosclerosis (with or without stapedetomy) usually have poorer discrimination scores relative to others with similar audiogram curves? My suspicion is that perhaps we do, and that may be one reason why we sometimes we don’t benefit as much from modern HA technology compared to folks with nerve loss but no otosclerosis.

(Hz) L(dB) R(dB)
250 40 50
500 55 65
1K 55 60
2K 60 60
4K 70 70
8K 90 100
L: 88% SDat80dB
R: 64% SDat85dB
L&R stapedectomy

#7

No, it’s actually quite the opposite. Conductive losses tend to not cause distortion that sensorneural losses will. My otosclotic sisters has only single point on the audiogram better then 100dB has been told her hearing (with hearing aids) is too good to qualify for an implant. I was dumbfounded when I saw how bad her audiogram was. I would have thought this loss would be beyond anything that amplification could help.

#8

Stapedetomy I did 30 years ago in my left ear. After about 6.7 years, subid started hearing different with the left ear. I reviewed and did not improve, I started using the right aids. Now I’m putting AIDS on the left ear surgery, but I’m hearing is too much hard metallic sounds and echoes and voices of people are hard to understand though hear you high. The audiologist is struggling to adjust the device. Phonak

#9

Follow Up

I have had my aids now for a month. Audibel Range High Power with custom earmolds. So far I am extremely well pleased. Not only am I hearing well but my ears are also now balanced which I have not experienced in many years. I am very happy at this point. It only took three folow up adjustments to get them pretty well perfect.

#10

Otosclerosis can result in conductive and/or sensorineural hearing loss. The primary form of hearing loss in otosclerosis is conductive hearing loss (CHL) whereby sounds reach the ear drum but are incompletely transferred via the ossicular chain in the middle ear, and thus partly fail to reach the inner ear.

#11

I know you are probably a spam-bot, but this is twaddle. There’s plenty of otosclerosis patients that present with a Sensorineural loss.

#12

Michelle
I have had otosclerosis for over 20 years, so trust me, I know what it is.

You may call yourself a professional on your website but your conduct on this forum is far removed from professional. I have yet to see any of your posts that have offered any constructive comment or information.

#13

We think you are responding to a spambot.

#14

Hi DFPope,

You might be interested in this; Fully Implantable Hearing System (FIHS) by Otokinetics? Should their clinical trials prove their worth, this could be the way forward? Check out the video:D

Cheers Kev.

http://www.otokinetics.com/index.html

#15

Kev,
That was pretty interesting. Looks like it might be an improvement on the Esteem.
I will be interested to see how the trials come out.
I do like the fact that it leaves the ossicular chain in tact.