menieresstrong

I have been living with a hearing aid for about a month and a half now, so I thought I'd give you guys a little update on how everything is going. It's going pretty damn well! When I first got my hearing aid the ear piece was a very general one - one that could fit into anyone's ear. It worked fine, but it was itchy from time to time. At first I didn't notice too big of a difference with or without the hearing aid on, only some certain noises and stuff. It took a few weeks for my brain to adapt enough for me to be able to notice how my hearing drops when I take the hearing aid out. I also noticed how it helps with my tinnitus :) Almost a couple of weeks ago I got my own individual ear piece, and was introduced to whole new sounds! I didn't know there could be that big of a difference between the general ear piece and the individual one! I hear so much better now. The ear piece fits my ear perfectly (as it should, of course), and doesn't itch. Plus it...

Let me just say this: Meniere's disease sucks . It really does, but there's nothing I can do about the fact that I have it. I can't make it go away, although I can manage it. There's no known cause for it, so I can't tell you what to do so you won't get it. In some cases it's hereditary, and in some cases a person's just shit out of luck. That's the wording my co-worker once used. She asked me, "So does it run in your family or were you just shit out of luck?" I was just shit out of luck. But... if I can't make it go away, why wouldn't I just try to live with it with the best of my ability? Meniere's disease has made my life better in many ways. I could live without the dizziness and especially the vertigo (which I don't get a lot anymore, thank goodness), and I hate it when I get pressure in my ear. But when it comes to my hearing loss, I find it the least of my worries. I got used to the idea of a hearing aid before I go...

Last summer I went to get my hearing checked after a couple of years, and it turned out my left ear had gone worse. It had happened so gradually I hadn't even noticed. I had my doubts, but never really believed it until I saw my audiogram on paper. I've now lost the high pitched noises, like bird singing, and struggle to hear people in crowds. After the results last summer I went to see an ENT, and told him I need a hearing aid. He, at first, said I was a borderline case, and doubted whether I needed a hearing aid since my right ear was perfectly fine. But then he took a look at my previous audiograms and figured if my hearing continued to deteriorate at this speed, it's better to get a hearing aid sooner rather than later, and so he put me down for one. Since I wasn't an acute case, I needed to wait about six months to get to my actual hearing aid appointment. That appointment was on the last day of January. Since I still had an infection in both of my ears, we were ...

My hearing has deteriorated so slowly that I never even realized it was happening. I knew it was happening, but as far as I'm concerned I hear just as well as I did five years ago. But... I really don't. I mean, I really  don't. Here's a picture of my very first audiogram back in 2012 when I'd never heard of Meniere's disease compared to an audiogram from July of 2016: The truth is, even after the latest audiogram I didn't feel as hard of hearing as I am on paper. My right ear being healthy naturally has a lot to do with why I feel that way, but still. I never noticed how bad my left ear had gotten. Every now and then I would pay attention to it and take advantage of certain aspects of my hearing loss, but I never thought about it any further. You know what I mean? I'm getting a hearing aid for my left ear sometime this spring, which ought to make things a bit easier for me, since I don't do so well in crowds, classrooms, and other noisy e...