Thursday, January 28, 2010

Audiogram...

Well. I have never had a more strange experience. Ok, no I take that back. I have had stranger.

I expected the usual : Click the button when you hear the beep. And I followed the commands. It was hard to hear. My ears were ringing, and the "ear muffs" made this weird suction on my ears and there was a lot of pressure. I could hear the fluid running through the back of my neck. Anyone with a chiari knows about this... Its aggravating!!!

Anyway, I had trouble processing the test. It was like I was waiting and trying to hear the "beep" then there would be one and I would push the button, only the next beep would be lower and quieter and so on. But it was weird, it was like I would listen for the sound, finally distinguish it from the rest of the noise and then realize that I could hear it lower.

The tech was not very nice. She was snappy and impatient. When we were done I thought it went really well, but apparently my results were "unreliable" because I was "inconsistent". Well, great. Thanks. I wanted to tell her: you try it for one day: not be able to distinguish between the ringing you already have and the teeny tiny squeeking beep in the headphones, then when you realize what the beep is supposed to sound like, you realize you can hear it quieter, and that you probably missed some clicking of the button prior to it...

I don't know how to describe it, it was almost like my brain didn't know what it was looking for, until it heard it loud enough, and then after that it recognized it loud and quiet Once it knew the specific sound it was able to pick it out after that. It happened with every decibal sound she tried. She didn't even ask me if there was a problem, or give me a chance to tell her the experience, she just assumed I was "unreliable".....

Smae thing happened when he was doing the words. Say the words I say... She says them loud, I repeat them back to her and then as she says them to me quieter and quieter I can pick out parts of the word I regognize (like "dog" out of "hotdog") and then I can repeat it back because I already know what the word is. I recognized part of it. But if she tried a different word I wouldnt have been able to tell her what it was. It sounded muffled and blurred together... Grrrrr...

It is so frustrating to have a test work out that way and not be given the chance to verbalize what it was like. I know I will have a chance to explain that to the neurologist that ordered it, but I feel in the depths of my soul that I NEED to explain that to that tech so she will not think badly of me and my "inconsistent" answers......

1 comment:

  1. I thought I had posted the other evening and when I came back here I had not!

    Anyway in brief, not such an important test but my last eye test infuriated the optician. Apparently not being compliant is common in us EDEsers! I could not differentiate between which lenses popped over my eyes made a better image or not and asked her to repeat over again. With her sighs getting more and more frustrated by the second. Apparently not knowing which is better or not and changing one's mind is not normal. But hey I am not normal anyway.

    Don't worry about the technician or need to explain. They do a good job but are often not trained in good bedside manner and the nature of the job probably means they are not 'people persons'.

    The fact that your answers were inconsisent may be a clue to diagnosis you never know.

    Thinking ofyou

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