Acujen - I have hearing aids for both ears and find them absolutely hopeless. They seem to distort sounds and if there is more than one person in the room it is chaos. No good whatsoever for listening to music. I have been back to Audiologist 2-3 times but all I am told is that with the level of hearing loss that I have it is never going to be any better, no matter what I try. I have to rely fully on subtitles for watching television and they are so far behind the actual words that are being spoken at the time that they are pretty useless. As I have said before I find peace in in my deafness as trying to deal with sounds, voices etc is too stressing. Never considered a CI, do they do that for bilateral?
CI is only for bilateral deafness. You have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for the implant, but maybe you are. Something you might want to look into. Is the vertigo gone for you, Rod, and you're just dealing with the hearing loss?
I feel there have been quite a few pointer already in this thread as to how we came to be able to come to terms with it all.... I have attempted to just chop out the relevant bit bits (as I see it) below which "may" help a little, I hope. tmcmahon2 It's a mental switch. You can sit and dwell on how bad it is, how it could get worse, what it might do to your life and dig yourself into a bottomless pit. I did that for a few weeks while scrambling to figure out what I could do or even what I did. ("Who did I piss off in a former life? Was I Nazi or something?") Then you realize that such behavior is self-destructive and not helping in the slightest, either with the symptoms or your life in general. In fact, given stress is a major influence on the immune system it just makes you physically worse and then it's easy to fall further down the spiral. Accept that you have it and move forward as best as you can. I'm not saying you should be blissfully ignorant and pretend it isn't there but you can't focus on it so much that you form a black hole that eats your entire world. Phil Mac Personally I feel the BIGGEST hurdle with long term dealing with MM is coming to terms with what you have got, that does not in any way mean giving up but it does mean accepting it for what it is... nicmger I had to work at it. It was a struggle. I was better at seeing the "silver lining" for others than I was seeing anything positive dealing with this thing. My mom would ask me if I went dizzy that day, if I said no, she would say "so it was a good day". SO many times I responded and refuted that my ear pressure was crazy high, the ringing was such I could not hear over it, I was so exhausted, etc.... But slowly I realized I had to focus on anything positive. So the days that I don't go dizzy...it's a good day (even with everything else). If the ear pressure is "less", it is a good day - don't focus on the fact that it should not be there at all. Even the days I have a vertigo attack, if it is "shorter" than ones I have had with 4-6 hrs +, it has to be considered "good". I truly believe that when I finally started focusing on those things - positive - is when I finally started to deal with this thing better. Worrying about "maybe" going dizzy, or "what if" takes too much energy and doesn't help. Gardengal Looking into the future was my hardest part. I was 21 when this all started. My whole life ahead of me...like this? There have been many days when I could only look 4 hrs in the future. I literally broke my days into 4 hr chunks and didn't allow myself to think past it. It really did help. Cjbeau When the thought about going bilateral crosses my mind, I think that maybe there could be worse things and then I let go of the negative thought and move on. Vicki These forums have a wealth of knowledge about MM. A lot more than any doctor I have seen in the 50 years I have MM. Try to think about that when you feel anxious or overwhelmed by Meniere's, you will find a way to get symptom relief, but it does take time and trial and error. But you will get there. Phil Mac sitting down & thinking through and focusing on the positives that had happened that day (some days were much harder than others of course) which mostly actually got me in a good mood (or on those other days a less bad mood) nicmger Focus on today. Enjoy what you can for today. If today you get up and it feels like an o'k ear day, enjoy the day to the fullest. The hopeless feeling comes when you let this thing take away everything fun.
Right, now that I have had a chance to think things over, which I NEED to do these day, let's see if I can put into words how I did it....not the easiest task in the world. On the positive note you have taken the first step by understanding it's necessary but for the second bigger step, that has to change from "necessary" to "I want to" For me I found it easier to make the mental changes I needed to do by doing them for my wife & not for myself (much better self motivation that way & in the long term what I do that's good for her is also good for me) Start by setting the bar really low for yourself.... for me it was as simple as trying to be in as good a mood as I could by the time she got home Then raise the bar a little....., for me it was to actually be in a good mood when she got home on more occasions than I was in a not such a good mood. Then raise the bar again..... I found each raise became easier & they raised fairly fast after the first couple. When things started to get on top of me (mentally) I would stop right there (no matter what I was doing) sit down & think of the good things that had happened so far that day.... i.e. push the negative thoughts out of my mind & replace them with positive ones. I also developed a couple of little personal quirks that I use mentally to strengthen my resolve, one weird one being I refuse to give anything menieres related any highfalutin name (medical or not) when thinking about it, this even sometimes moves into when I message, more often than not I will say "noise in the ear" or "the world spinning" etc. rather than their medical name.
Hi Acujen - no I still have the vertigo but I can cope better with that than I can with the loss of my hearing. Some may find that odd. Being retired the vertigo means that I have to lie down for a while till it passes. That I can do without too much disruption to my life. But there nothing I can do about my hearing loss, that stays all the time. I have looked into the CI side of things not too sure about it. But thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Omg I get you so much. I'm in general very positive,googy and funny, but this thing is challenging at times. Yes it can be bad but we all have to hang on to hope and as bad as I feel this is It could be so much worse. Hang in there.
There is always hope, never give up. http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/06/01/410065053/new-hearing-technology-brings-sound-to-a-litte-girl?sc=nd