Yesterday I took Adam to the ear doctor to see if there was anything we can do about his hearing loss. The appointment started off with another hearing test. When the audiologist finished, she said that the loss at 4000Hz was still there. (Adam had said that the ringing had gone away almost completely so I was hoping the loss had too). She said that Columbus Speech and Hearing had thought the loss was conductive (which would have meant there was some kind of blockage or something more physical causing the problem) which didn't make sense with his history of being noise induced. I said that is why we were there because Lisa (the audiologist at CSH) said things seemed kind of weird. Well, after doing her couple of tests, this audiologist said that it was sensory - meaning nerve damage and most likely permanent. Great!
We had to wait a little bit before seeing Dr. Ryzeman. That gave Adam enough time to jump all of the couch and play with the chair that goes up and down in the exam room and just get crazy! Once the Dr. came in, Adam started freaking out and putting his hands over his ears and wiggling around. I had to restrain him so the Dr. could check his ears and heart. Then I handed over my phone so the Dr. could talk to me with out a bunch of whining in the background. He basically said that if we had come in soon after the noise exposure, he could have given Adam some steroids that would have stopped some of the inflammation that caused the damage. Being nearly 2 months out, steroids wouldn't do anything now. There's nothing that can be done for it. His ear might continue to heal on it's own but it would be slow and could take a year. We are to follow up with our audiologist in 6 months and a year to keep an eye on it. As for the tinnitus - Adam will just have to habituate to it. He already has to an extent since he said he doesn't really hear it anymore at home but could hear it in the super quiet hearing test booth.
Thankfully, the loss is only at 4000Hz and not the whole spectrum so there's no need to worry about hearing aids or anything like that. We feel a little stupid for not taking him to the dr. right after but we both figured it would be like when you go to a concert and the ringing goes away shortly after. Live and learn, I guess.
