Happy New Year to my several readers. No apology for not posting sooner as I have just concluded a good holiday run of eating well, bingeing on Netflix and Prime and NFL, reading and having our little family together.
A summary update:
Not working out yet. Still afraid of small spaces with strangers nearby--even masked strangers. But, our regional health center will begin taking reservations for COVID-19 innoculations toward the end of this week via their website. Then we'll see how much delay there is at that point. I am ready to get back to working out as soon thereafter as possible. (Utah still has one of the highest positivity test rates in the country.)
My vitals are consistently good with few exceptions: my resting HR is in the low 50 bpm. My pulse/O2 is in the low 90%s. I am sleeping through most nights getting 8 hours with a 1-hr afternoon nap. My blood pressure is at or slightly below the norm of 120/80. 99% of the time my heart is in normal sinus rhythm. (There were 2 exceptions last week where I got AFib readings on the insurrection days.) My diuretic (Lasix) usually only needs to be taken every 3rd day, meaning I am building up fluid at a slower rate. All good. But:
Every winter I get an ear pain related to swallowing which I interpret as a failure of the eustachian tube to clear with a change in pressure. (Think of clearing your ears after descending in an airplane, or rather not being able to.) Usually, some throat lozenges or a spray will take care of it. This winter it has been more pronounced. I have also felt as though I am carrying more residual mucous in my head leading to the condition. In any case I scheduled an appointment with my regular physician. He and a helper noted considerable ear wax and tried to clear the outer canals. They were unable to complete the task so sent me onward to an ENT guy in the same clinic who completed the task.
Soon thereafter I noted a phenomenon in my right ear: it was echoing sounds from my right hand on the piano, on the telephone, on the TV and in conversation. This is called monaural diplacusis. It was enough to lead me to get an audiological work up at the university's audiology clinic. There they found a considerable difference in my hearing levels in my ears. The left ear shows a typical age related hearing loss with mild loss in the lower frequencies and a falloff to the moderate/severe category in the higher frequencies. However, the right ear shows a severe to profound loss in the lower frequencies rising until it pairs with the left ear in the higher frequencies--an inverted U or V pattern. The audiology clinician thought this outcome had clinical significance and referred me back to the ENT guys.
Apparently these symptoms lead to the possibility of an acoustic neuroma which is a (usually benign) tumor growing in the inner ear canal on the myelin sheath. (I believe said canal is post-cochlear and enters the skull as the 8th cranial nerve.) So, an MRI is about to be scheduled and we'll go from there.
Here is Wikipedia:
It is better called vestibular schwannoma (the latter are the type of cells involved).
True incidence is rare (20 or so per million) but may be rare only because it wasn't identified.with earlier MRI technology.
Symptoms: unexplained unilateral hearing loss, tinnitus, and disequilibrium. (So I have two of three, now.)
More to come, surely....
