CIST and SSHL

  • My experience

    I started this blog way too late – I’m forgetting a bit what it was like at the start. But here’s a record of my journey from the start. If you’d like to read the most recent posts go here.

    I had a ‘blocked ear’ in July 2023. For the first 4 weeks I carried on life pretty normally. But over time it became very sensitive and painful. It started impacting my ability to socialise. Steroids provided some improvement, but this was temporary. 6 months later I’m no better.

    My current thinking now is that what started as possibly an inner ear or nerve issue (I may never know) became a brain issue. I’m writing this website as a way to help me learn and understand what’s happening with the hope that my hearing can improve.

  • The Musical

    Tonight is the first night of the Dubbo Christian School’s musical ‘Cinderella’. Emily and Laura have lead roles. (Yay!)I had tickets but can’t go. 😦

    My ear is very sensitive and sore today. I can’t imagine myself in the middle of watching a musical performance when I can’t even handle a conversation. This is a huge disappointment.

    So tonight is a big level of FOMO. Actually it’s not fear of missing out, it’s missing out!

    I have booked for all three nights, so there are 2 nights left.

    To good news is today is much better than yesterday so I am praying for a better day tomorrow!

    I think I will go irrespective of how my ear is tomorrow.

    I can’t miss it!

    Well it’s 7:30, I can’t go to the musical but I might go and watch the Sunset and enjoy a quiet night alone. I once would have loathed a ‘quiet night alone’ but I’m starting to look forward to solitude!

  • Cinderella x2

    Friday March 8 went to see Cinderella, I had one earplug in most of the night and 2 earplugs in some of the night, just when it was painful.
    It was amazing, a beautiful night.
    Emily (left) was Cinderella and Laura (right) was a stepsister!

    Saturday morning I woke up with some slight ringing but my hearing was improved! So I went again Saturday night and tried it with no earplugs at all.
    It was magical, a beautiful night.

    Since then my ears have been complaining. Ringing, going deaf each day. Up and down. It definitely did something. – good or bad I’m unsure.

    It’s hard to tell, but it feels like this. It feels like part of my ear/brain was stimulated by it and improved. It feels like another part was overloaded and damaged.

    Is it that my nerve/brain loves the stimulation and improved, but my poor ear was overloaded? Not sure!

    But it was a wonderful night and I’m so thankful to the staff at Dubbo Christian School for investing into the kids, and I’m also thankful that the next day I feel OK apart from some ringing.

  • A very big drop today. Very deaf again.

    Big drop in my hearing today. But this time NOT accompanied by pain and sensitivity, for that I am thankful!

    But I would really like to know what caused this drop today? Is there a way to know? Or do I just run with it?

    • Was it because I went to a musical a week ago (my ear has been ringing ever since!)
    • Was it due to 3 hours of conversations yesterday?
    • Was it random?

    I have had this 6 months and still don’t know such basic things!

  • Improvement over the day

    9am I woke up pretty deaf.

    I did some quiet jobs outside, but my hearing was slowly getting worse.

    At 11am I was feeling unusually deaf, so I did another hearing test. The test confirmed my hearing was dropping – worst it’s been in 6 months!

    Since then all I’ve dropped everything, had a 1hr magnesium bath listening to music, then 5 hours of CIST. I have 4 songs on repeat. The Last Wave of Summer, Breakfast at Sweethearts, Flame Tree,s and Bal – A -Versailles. (It’s useless listing to too many songs as my ear cannot hear them, if I repeat a song the ear can slowly learn to hear them properly). At the start it was so bad I could barely hear anything, no bass, no piano, no vocals, mainly just the high drums and some fuzz. Now it’s almost back to normal. I am hearing my ear improve over the day.

  • Another test

    Yesterday my hearing went backwards from 9-11 then improved after 11am with CIST for 1 hr and a magnesium bath. Today I woke up fairly deaf again, so I thought I’d try the CIST 2 hours earlier during the time my hearing went backwards yesterday, to make sure it wasn’t a daily cycle thing.

    Sure enough my hearing improved during the bath from 9-10 and for the hour afterwards. I should have done a hearing test at 11 but was busy and didn’t get around to it till 1.

  • Phone Call

    I am trying to work out the best way to communicate with people. On Tuesday I tried just having one earbud in my good ear ,and nothing in my bad ear. I’ve tried this before, it tends to crash my hearing, but this time I thought I would measure before and after.
    Here was the impact it had on my hearing.

    Quite a massive drop.

    This drop happened over about 1 hour. The second measurement was done half an hour after the call finished.

    All I was doing was talking in my good ear.

    My bad ear was not being used at all.

    Yet the hearing in bad ear deteriorated.


    Any theories as to why this happened?