Limbaugh opens up on battle with Deafness

[lighthouse33]

Limbaugh opens up on battle with Deafness:

Where I've Been the Last Week:

My autoimmune system thought that my ears were a disease and flooded my ears with white blood cells fending off what it thought was an illness.  What they tried to do to stop it was to give me chemotherapy drugs and all kinds of stuff to just stop my immune system, and it didn't work.  I've never been on as many drugs with as many side effects in my life during the process of losing hearing in my left ear.  I left the right ear vacant in case they came up with a cure for baldness.  Well, they're obviously not gonna come up with a cure for baldness.

rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/04/24/where_i_ve_been_the_last_week

My question is, what autoimmune disease is this?  He doesn?t say. Anyone have any guesses?

[Carolina]

What is AIED?
Autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED) is an inflammatory condition of the inner ear. It occurs when the body's immune system attacks cells in the inner ear that are mistaken for a virus or bacteria. AIED is a rare disease occurring in less than one percent of the 28 million Americans with a hearing loss.

How Does the Healthy Ear Work?

Symptoms of AIED
The symptoms of AIED are sudden hearing loss in one ear progressing rapidly to the second ear. The hearing loss can progress over weeks or months. Patients may feel fullness in the ear and experience vertigo. In addition, a ringing, hissing, or roaring sound in the ear may be experienced. Diagnosis of AIED is difficult and is often mistaken for otitis media until the patient develops a loss in the second ear. One diagnostic test that is promising is the Western blot immunoassay.

Treatment for AIED
Most patients with AIED respond to the initial treatment of steroids, prednisone, and methotrexate, a chemotherapy agent. Some patients may benefit from the use of hearing aids. If patients are unresponsive to drug therapy and hearing loss persists, a cochlear implant maybe considered.

http://www.entnet.org/HealthInformation/autoimmuneInnerEar.cfm

It's always something and then, it's something else.

Hugs,  Elaine

[quietdynamics]

Thank you for the information.

Might explain the chronic ear symptoms..
Did get a Dx of otitis media  in right ear and prolaspe in left.

Hearing in left ear is off... next specialist on the horizon.

Dr. had me using Nasogel in left ear. and that does help. Her opinion was tubes do not work long term?

I do recall that this symptom seemed to manifest when the neuro symptom spiked to a disabling degree. The hissing sound, about 2011.
The hearing change was before, as I recall needing to see students talk so I could "hear better".
Neuro issues where presenting then .. I realized in hindsight.

[Carolina]

I also had tinnitus first, then hearing loss was noticed in 2007, so I have hearing aids.  I one ear is worse than the other, or rather WAS worse than the other.   The hearing in my right ear (the worse one) came back in 2011.

So now my hearing loss is the same in both ears.  I also have a feeling of pressure in my right ear.  On the whole the otolaryngologist thinks it's Meniere's, since I had hearing return, and that really only happens with Meniere's I guess.

Anyway, I don't get the horrible vertigo (thank goodness, at least so far).

Facing the people you're talking to is key.  I don't wear my hearing aids very often, now that both ears are the same, and at the 'better' level.  I never thought about it being related to my immune system exactly but then Meniere's isn't clearly defined either.

I really felt that everything was falling apart in rapid order after my diagnosis (without any confirming blood work of course) of Sjogren's in 2002.

Well, we do what we can.  We cope.

Hugs,  Elaine