Dispatch From Oregon

[kevin_standlee]

Lisa called today. She hadn't called while I was at BayCon because she figured I was busy. I don't call her because she usually turns the telephone off when she goes to sleep, which, given her tinnitus, can be at any time of the day or night when she finally passes out.

The tinnitus isn't improving. None of the medications are making any difference. She's not happy. I don't blame her.

Her friend Scott came down from Portland and spent the night, she told me. She put him up in her father's RV, which serves as the family's spare bedroom. Besides, she said, she's too restive. She needs the whole trailer in which to stay up until (and if) she gets tired enough to sleep despite the wailing in her left ear.

Lisa thanks people for their various proposed cures or causes. Most of them, she says, are unlikely to be the case because if they were, they'd probably affect both ears equally, and her right ear is unaffected, while her left is nearly deaf and full of noise.

Comments

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

Frustrating to say the least. I'll continue to think good thoughts in her direction for whatever that's worth.

She has gotten a "second" opinion?

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

None of the medications are making any difference. She's not happy. I don't blame her.

She has my serious sympathies. I went through a nasty bout of tinnitus during a period when ear infections were hitting at a rate of one every six weeks. Hearing tests showed no loss of accuity...but that didn't mean I could hear (or sleep). Eventually, it mostly went away...leaving me confused and annoyed.

Hope hers does the same. Really, really hope so. It's just *awful*.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you or she have done all the web searches, but I came up with this page that was kinda a good summary (I've got it to a much lesser degree, so I'm occassionally looking for stuff anyway).

http://www.michiganear.com/library/brochures/tinnitus/index.html

[pwilkinson.livejournal.com]

One small suggestion (which may have been made already - if so, my apologies): if Lisa has any tendency to sleep on her left side, try to avoid doing so - or at least avoid having her left ear pressed against the pillow or other object. I had tinnitus in my left ear myself for several months a few years back: it eventually mostly went away, but it can still recur occasionally, either when I have a cold or for a few hours after I've been sleeping on my ear.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Much as she hates to do so -- that was indeed the side she favored sleeping on -- she's been trying that. It's not easy for her.

[pwilkinson.livejournal.com]

I know. In fact, there are still occasions when, to try to beat insomnia, I'll allow myself to sleep on my left side and accept that the tinnitus is likely to recur the next morning. But I always know that I'm probably being foolish.

[robot-grrl.livejournal.com]

A few years ago I read an article about treating tinnitus with an implant/insert that feeds in a signal that dampens or nullifies the "ringing". It's not a cure, but it had been tested in subjects like Lisa and it brought relief where there was no other options. I would do some research in this area at least.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is one of the possibilities, and we may get that far. Cochlear implants are a somewhat desperate choice, but it's one about which Lisa has been considering asking her doctor. (I haven't even researched whether my insurance will pay for it.)