New Here - Possible GPA with Nasal involvement

[jmq]

drz,

How did your hearing loss come about? Asking because all the ear problems I'm starting to have. How did it start and progress?
-Jeannette

[drz]

drz,

How did your hearing loss come about? Asking because all the ear problems I'm starting to have. How did it start and progress?
-Jeannette

My first hearing loss began in childhood when a very bad Dentist blew out my eardrum by injecting Novocain into my eustachian tube. I went swimming with the perforated eardrum and got a serious ear infection. Recurrent infections due to a perforated eardrum led to a recurrent cholesteatoma that gradually dissolved all of the bones in my middle year and created a serious conductive hearing loss. This process took place over many years and there were several operations to try to repair the damage and restore the hearing without any luck.


The hearing in my other ear was normal until my GPA had a serious flare that almost killed me. It had attacked my kidneys and lungs so I had blood in my urine and was coughing up blood. Then one morning I woke up deaf. My balance also seemed impaired. At that point my GPA had not yet been diagnosed and it took over another week until I could get transferred to a bigger hospital where they had the experience and expertise to confirm the diagnosis of GPA. They tried to restore my hearing with mega dosage of steroids including direct injections into my eardrum but it was to no avail.


Before I could get a BAHA operation to restore some of my hearing I had to attain a drug induced remission from the GPA for at least a year so it was about two years after my GPA diagnosis was confirmed that I was able to regain some more adequate hearing. My only hearing is on the inside of the ear that has no conductive mechanism but the BAHA mechanism will pick up the sound and transmitted through my skull to the inner ear on the other side. I also have a behind the ear hearing aid on the ear with no conduction which does give me some limited hearing. My speech showed a significant deterioration before I regained some more adequate hearing and then it took several months to improve back to the level before the hearing loss.

Hearing loss is a very debilitating condition and many research studies indicate the isolation and depression created from hearing loss is even greater than from the loss of vision. Probably because people do not make jokes about blind people and are more willing to help them.