Re: Re: Removal of Cholesteatoma and Ossicles

[Guest guest]

I remember talking to my Aunt Isabel before she passed. She had

cholesteatoma as a little girl ... goodness more than 70 years ago. The

old folks actually used to call the surgery " scrapin' the bones. " TJ,

I'll bet if you have usable bones left, your doc will give this a shot,

but it may be that he's not too hopeful owing to what he was able to

determine from the CT scan. He might not have wanted to get your hopes

up. They always stress that a clean dry ear is the primary goal. I

think they get a big ego stroke with how much they can better our

hearing on top of that though ... can't say I blame them. That's a

pretty cool line of work.

Best of luck with the surgery,

Matt

lboyle74 wrote:

>

> Scraping the hearing bones is possible. In 2004 when our daughter

> was first diagnosed, our ent told us that he could not save the

> ossicles. But we found a doctor who could. In fact he was

> originally going to remove the ossicles, scrape them and store them

> in the mastoid. The plan was to re-attach them during her second

> look surgery. Instead he opted to remove them, reshape them, and

> glue them back in all in the first surgery. Recovery was tough due

> to the restrictions on movement until the bones healed. She healed

> well and testing showed she had only a 30 decibel loss. The loss had

> very little impact on her day to day activities. So it did work.

> Unfortunatly the c-toma grew back and during her surgery in april,

> the doctor found that it had disolved the hearing bones completely,

> they were gone. Obviously the c-toma regrew because somehow it was

> not completely removed in the first surgery. Whether keeping the

> bones was the problem we will never know but it did give her three

> years of hearing during a critical time in her language development.

> She is c-toma free now but her left ear has a 70 decibel loss.

>

>

> >

> > After having my first Cholesteatoma removed in 2002, I thought I

> was home free. The

> > surgery was straight forward and I kept my ossicles bones (stirrup,

> hammer, and anvil) in

> > tact. Well, I just found out that my Cholesteatoma has come back in

> the same ear. The

> > growth is lying against my skull, surrounds my ossicles, and is

> lying over my facial nerve.

> > Needless to say, I was not prepared to hear these words. When I

> asked about the removal of

> > the Cholesteatoma, everything (again) seemed straight forward -

> until my neurotologist told

> > me that when he removes my Cholesteatoma, he would also take my

> ossicles. My doctor told

> > me that a Cholesteatoma is soft and moist - but could not be

> scraped away from these small

> > bones due to overstimulation of the auditory nerve. I have read on

> the Internet that there is

> > the use of laser in the hope of saving these small bones during the

> removal of a

> > Cholesteatoma. Yet, I can not find evidence of wide spread use. My

> neurotologist is board

> > certified and did his fellowship at the Michigan Ear Center. While

> I want to trust his

> > judgement, I just can't believe there is not a procedure that will

> allow a surgeon to remove

> > the Cholesteatoma from these bones and the answer is simply to take

> them based on a

> > physical exam and CT scan.

> >

> > Does anyone have any advice OR has anyone heard of a procedure that

> enables a doctor to

> > remove the Cholesteatoma and save these small bones?

> >

>

>

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