Hacker News Reader

Comment by Codesane | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting article. I suffer from sudden hearing loss and tinnitus, I've visited the doctor's office and they said that there was nothing they could do about it. This was during summer and I was dealt with by a summer intern. I suspect she was not fully capable of diagnosing me properly and that I should return and try to elaborate more clearly what and how the issue did arise along with what I have read recently about this issue.

Is there anyone else who have experienced the same issue? It struck me after a (very bad) night sleep combined with too much caffeine. I became almost deaf in my left ear when I woke up and was replaced by the tinnitus after about a week and has plagued me ever since.

View on HN

I suffer from pretty strong tinnitus.

I have also had episodes of extreme eye dryness. Furthermore, I got floaters whose onset matches my tinnitus onset. Additionally I have very mild sporadic joint pain. I'm HLA-B27+.

Altogether, this is quite obvious evidence for autoimmune arthritis or some related autoimmunity. I know this because I do autoimmune genetics research in a top lab. I've gone to a few doctors and they never even suggested the possibility of me suffering from autoimmune disease, which is scary.

I'm in the process of being diagnosed only because I explicitly decided to go to a rheumatologist myself. The rheumatologist facepalmed when he heard the whole story.

I suspect a significant proportion of tinnitus phenotypes are mild autoimmune ones.

I'm also HLA-B27+ and have psoriatic arthritis, psoriasis, occasional iritis, and fairly constant tinnitus.

I'll be curious to see what you learn.

If you wouldn’t mind, what is “HLA-B27+”?

The Human Leukocyte Antigen complex is a protein complex that immune cells use to determine self from non-self cells. There are many many many possible alleles, some of which are thought to be defective and contribute to auto-immune disorders. The most notorious (for medical students studying for standardized tests) is HLA-B27.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLA-B27

Specifically, check out the section on disease associations.

And

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_leukocyte_antigen

I've heard from my doctor and from other patients about cases where some steroids helped or even resolved tinnitus completely. I'm currently investigating this option.

In my case, years before my tinnitus onset, I started having a lot of discomfort on my right ear (my tinnitus is mostly one-sided, just like my floaters).

Firstly, my right ear started getting clogged with wax really frequently. Then, I developed extreme sensitivity to cold. So, cold air would give me acute ear pain.

Immediately before and after my tinnitus onset I had mild vertigo quite frequently.

Ever since I developed tinnitus, my ear feels full and clogged.

Yeah, my brother has this too for like ~10 years and the docs say the same thing, nothing you can do.

Why do you assume the medical provider you saw was a "summer intern?"

Because she said she was

I had a dislodged neck vertebrae which caused tinnitus-like symptoms.

edit: if this was recent, you should see an audiologist immediately. Google SSNHL.

it happened to me last month. Hearing hasnt returned after 6 weeks, so it's looking like permanent deafness.

The clinic I went to thought it might be an ear infection and gave me antibiotics. Didn't start the steroids until 8 days in. The audiologist said the effective treatment period for SSNHL is 2-4 weeks, with best results within 48 hours.

Working with interns at hospitals is so frustrating, when you have a real problem. W were assigned one that added zero value, and in fact caused harm by waking my kid up to do meaningless checks in the middle of the night. I snapped and told him (and his friend who was attached at the hip) to fuck off, and we didn't see him again. I know interns need to learn, but there's got to be a better way than this, seriously.

I'd appreciate replies for perspective instead of down votes

What about him was "zero value"? Why did you find the checks "meaningless"? You criticized him without explaining why you concluded the behaviour was unhelpful (and if you really did tell him to eff off, I'd say that was really unhelpful). As you say, they have to learn somehow.

I'm not sure if you've spent any serious time in the hospital, but most of the night shift seems to be glorified babysitting. The nighttime hospitalist isn't going to do shit, so if you don't have a diagnosis and treatment plan yet, you aren't going to get anything done. He want taking any notes in the exam, just disrupting sleep for nothing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com