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I'm deaf in one ear. How much does THAT suck?

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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:32 / 02.02.05

Woke up today unable to hear through my left ear. At all.
Went to the doctor's... they got someone to see me pretty fast, which was cool. Apparently I have some kind of infection. Or a burst eardrum. They don't know. All being well, I should have my full hearing restored within the week, with the drops they've given me. Unless it's a burst eardrum. They don't know.

But fuck, is this weird. Crossing roads is dangerous. Conversations with more than one other person have become a logistical nightmare.
It's really fucked.
Maybe it's God's revenge on me for ordering a bunch of black metal stuff from Amazon just before I went to sleep?

AAARRRGGGHHH. This is the most annoying thing in the world ever. Especially seeing as how I've already decided that at some point this weekend I'm gonna spend whatever it takes to see Rammstein. If I can't hear them, it'll DEFINITELY detract from the experience.

16:45 / 02.02.05

Well that's just a whole bunch of arse. Sorry to hear about that.
I went inexplicably deaf in one ear once for about an hour. Nobody knows why or how it happened and it's never happened since but just for the hour was weird enough.
Hope it all gets better soonly.

17:12 / 02.02.05

Fuck, it does suck. You feel so off balance as well as hard of hearing. You just feel like banging your head against a wall. It's happened to me before. I have terribly sensitive ears.

One time (because this has happened more than once) I went to the doctor, and he said he saw some metal/glass thing and made an appointment for me to have it removed by a specialist. When I went to the specialist, he saw it too, then gave me some drops and told me to come back the next day. It was totally gone the next day.

The weird thing is, before my ear started to hurt/buzz/mute, I had a dream. In the dream I pulled a crystal out of my ear. The same ear.

How weird is that?

17:15 / 02.02.05

Hope the ear clears up soon, Stoat.

On a similar, but more trivial, note: I'm getting over a sinus infection that took away my sense of smell for a week - and not just because I was blocked up, either. I could often breathe perfectly well through my nose, but I was able to wave a bottle of eucalyptus oil under my nose and not smell a thing. It's odd how disorienting that is, especially if you're around someone who's smoking, or you're pouring a cup of coffee or cooking - things that normally carry olfactory cues, and you're not getting them. Even for a relatively atrophied sense, it feels really strange.

Then, when it came back, I went through a few days when all I could smell was vanilla - inexplicably - everywhere I went. I still do, once in a while, though otherwise my olfactory sense is back to normal.

~L
"I once saw a dog that had no nose."
"How did he smell?"
"Terrible!"

17:23 / 02.02.05

Oh, Stoatie, that is so nt cool, especially with a concert coming up. I hope that clears up in time.

To continue the sub-thread of lost senses, I once lost my sense of taste by eating too many wasabi-coated peas in one sitting. All I could taste for three days was a nasty copper flavor, and it wouldn't go away. Bite of salmon = copper. Sip of coffee = copper. The worst, I think, was toothpaste.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:28 / 02.02.05

Remind me sometime to tell you of the time I drank aftershave (out of booze, y'see)...
... OBSESSIVE tooth-brushing (which, as anyone who knows me in real life will tell you, is just NOT ME) STILL didn't get rid of the taste. For three whole days. THREE WHOLE DAYS!!!

18:03 / 02.02.05

Aieee. Deaf in one ear is the Worst Thing Ever. Worse than toothache. Worse than a scratched cornea. Worse, even, than one of those mouth ulcers right on the tip of your tongue that goes off every time you eat or talk or smile. It’s not quite painful enough to justify taking the whole day off to feel properly sorry for yourself, but it still delivers a constant trickle of pure misery straight into your brain. Which is awfully wearing. I'd be very surprised if there isn't a torture/interrogation technique based around blocking up one ear of the victim, and then just casually chatting with them about everyday stuff until they crack and sign the confession/betray their comrades/take the 20 years in a Siberian salt mine, anything, if only you'll unblock their ear.

er...which is to say, I sympathise. It's horrid.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:17 / 02.02.05

Oh man, that really is TEH SUXORZ. I'm permenantly partially deaf in one ear, which drove me barmy enough until I got used to it. Swimming sometimes makes that ear go deaf completely, and that drives me bonkers!

18:34 / 02.02.05

Sorry to hear that too Stoatie, can't the universe just fucking leave you alone?

Here's hoping your ear heals and get's back to normal too anyway. Wow, when things balance out for you you're in for some good times!

18:59 / 02.02.05

Stoatie you have my sympathies, that sucks.
On the subject of temporary loss of senses my friend went blind for a good hour, something to do with migraines I believe, but had never experienced it before and they were so calm, I think I'd have gone absolutely mental.

19:03 / 02.02.05

Yep, I've been there. It was fucking horrid, I really feel for you.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:20 / 02.02.05

mice: there's an annoying ringing sound

That's the worst of it. I normally rely on that ringing sound, cos it tells me when I'm way too fucked (dunno about anyone else, but I ALWAYS get it when I'm hammered on anything). Now I'm half-drunk, I have the ringing sound on one side, and fuck knows when I'm too pissed! My left side thinks it's totally wankered, my right side doesn't, and all I want to do is get fucked and forget about it... but how do I know when I've achieved that?

Argh. This is the most irritating thing ever. I've long held the belief that I'd rather be blind than deaf (I have a total paranoia thing about eyesight) but I'm now FULLY confirmed in the belief that I'd kill not to ever have to be either.

20:20 / 02.02.05

I am guessing you meant, deaf rather than blind, Stoats. But we got ya.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:34 / 02.02.05

You guess right. This "one ear bad" thing is obviously affecting my common sense.

21:51 / 02.02.05

Sorry to hear that chief ( and even sorrier for that unintentional, but even so frankly shocking gag. ) If it's any consolation, I tend to get this a bit myself, and as unpleasant as ear trouble is, it always seems to clear up in a couple of days. So here's hoping that's what happens.

And Rammstein are a fairly visual band - Worst case scenario, even if you are a bit out the game hearing-wise, it's not as if you'll have been to see Nick Drake, y'know ?

But get well soon, anyhow.

21:58 / 02.02.05

You've got an ear left, haven't you?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:01 / 02.02.05

It has far fewer earrings though.

22:06 / 02.02.05

Oh, God, my sympathies Stoatie. I suffered with blocked ear(s) for years until I finally had good enough insurance to see a specialist. In the meantime I availed myself of many home remedies - 50/50 hydrogen peroxide in the ear, warm olive oil in the ear, OTC ear drops, homeopathic ear drops, OTC decongestants, blasts of warm water with a squirter thing, and those ear candle thingies. These things sometimes solved the problem in the immediate sense (sometimes not, and I was just deaf for months or weeks), but the blockage kept coming back.

Finally, I saw that specialist. And he informed me that I have very dry skin (yes I know), and that basically dry skin was sloughing off in my ear canal and accumulating until finally that combined with ear wax blocked it up. Disgusting, I know, yet so simple. All I have to do is stick a little vaseline-dipped cotton swab in there now and then & keep the problem at bay.

A friend of mine recently woke up deaf in one ear. He saw a doctor and found out it was some kind of freak virus. He can expect to get up to 80 percent of his hearing back in that ear if he's lucky. Now that sucks.

22:07 / 02.02.05

The ideal time to move them across.

I mean, we've had people on here who have no ears at all. Okay, well, they were trolls and did actually have ears. But... er... something.

My mum's deaf in one ear. I can ask her what the best solution is if you like. She seems to do okay for herself. And thing how much you can save on headphones - you just have to turn the volume up to one side, and then, when that wears out, switch ears and turn the volume to the other side.

And you can use it as an excuse to ignore things you don't want to respond to. "Oh, sorry, you were talking to my bad ear." Bah, just whinging about nothing if you ask me.

23:16 / 02.02.05

Whether that's true or not Fridge, it's not going to interfere with Rammstein's gigantic hydraulic inflatable cock though, is it ?

Or is it...

09:45 / 03.02.05

Lepidopteran - as I read about your recent forays into the world of distorted smelling, it reminded me of one of the cases in Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, called The Dog Beneath the Skin about a guy who developes an acutely magnified sense of smell for about week...its fascinating. And Stoatie, how's you ear today??

10:38 / 03.02.05

yeah, how is it? I hope it's improving. (Jesus Stoatie, I only ever seem to communicate with you these days via This Awful Thing Just Happened To Me Threads(TM) on here. Like Xyu says, it really is high time the Universe picked on someone else.)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:32 / 03.02.05

It's still fucked. Bah. And it just gets more and more annoying!
I'm thinking I should maybe give Rammstein a miss- best not to fuck with it too much, I guess. ANd they're playing tomorrow and Saturday, too, so if it's better I can still try my luck then.

How come this shit never happens when I'm on my working week?

18:23 / 03.02.05

Maybe, though, all that harsh German industrial noise will help shake your ear back into health?

That's what I'd tell myself, anyway.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:40 / 04.02.05

Argh. Just got a text message reading simply "do ANYTHING to see Rammstein" from a friend who went last night.

15:26 / 04.02.05

Actually, Stoatie, it has just occurred to me that, if you're on antibiotics for an ear infection, the one thing you probably shouldn't be doing is drinking...

Like ibis, I get the dry skin ear infections (yet one more reason why I really, really really fucking hatehatehate having psoriasis). The first really bad one I got, I was put on antibiotics, and I pretty much couldn't hear in one ear, either. Though I also had a strange side effect, where I could hear some stuff in the distance much clearer than anyone else which was completely freaky.

I sometimes get bad earaches (on and off all this week, annoyingly), but I discovered that the infections would always hit me after I'd used those little earphones that insert in your ear. (Somehow they encourage bacterial growth, not very nice). So I don't use them anymore and the risk of ear infection is lessened. I still get them sometimes, thhough -- and more prone than most.

So, you have my empathy, but don't drink any more booze! Especially not any Blue Stratos.

Goodness Gracious Meme

18:48 / 04.02.05

god honey, that sounds lousy. Hope you're feeling a bit better/the hearing's coming back.

But to amuse you while you wait a little example of my own doofusness/accidentially sensory fuckup.

Staying away from home, I wander into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Haven't got my glasses on/am barely awake yet. Sqeeze gunk from tube onto brush and start brushing.

GRRGGGHHHHHH**&*&**&

Horrible taste, I start coughing and gagging, desperately washing mouth out.

I'd brushed my teeth with shaving lotion. Could taste anyting else for about an hour.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:19 / 04.02.05

Hmm. Sounds much like Blue Stratos then. (three fucking DAYS, that taste lasted. AND the hangover.)
And I once ate soap when I was in Prague. I thought it was cake... it's a long, tawdry story.

Brigade du jour

23:40 / 04.02.05

So the rumours are true then. Sorry Stoatie, it sucks a big fat lemon without even peeling the sore fucker first.

I was going to suggest it might just be a massive lump of wax and therefore after a large number of Otex drops you might have the sheer joy of a syringing to look forward to, but then I realised somebody must have thought of it already.

Get well soon, mate.

Pooky Is Just My Pornstar Name

00:50 / 05.02.05

Stoatie, Anna's right, take your meds and stay off the hooch. You really don't want to compromise your ability to get well by giving in to temptation and boozing it up. A few months ago, an acquaintance of mine lost his hearing in his right ear due to a viral infection; so take this shit seriously and take your meds religiously. Anyway, get well soon.

Anna, as regards your psoriasis...have you tried using unrefined all natural shea butter? I've read that some psoriasis sufferers find shea butter to be a wonderful balm for their skin condition.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:25 / 23.02.05

I CAN HEAR AGAIN!!!

I've finally heard the new Cope album in stereo! It's twice as good as I thought it was!!!

The squooshy machine they used to suck all the gunk out was fucking mad, though. It made the weirdest noise- it was like Whitehouse were playing inside my head (only every now and then it hurt).

And as yet I appear to be suffering no embarrassing paranormal side-effects- like, I don't hear dead people, or anything.

So kids! Let that be a lesson to you all! Those happy-go-lucky days of earcocking abandon on the 'lith of yore can obviously have unforeseen consequences...

12:45 / 23.02.05

[Cheers, quietly]

12:48 / 23.02.05

Happy New 'Ear!!

12:53 / 23.02.05

That's great news...I SAID THAT'S GREAT NEWS...oh never mind.

Did you enjoy/hate/love DCIC?

14:13 / 23.02.05

Though maybe it wasn't too much earcocking that made you go deaf but too little, I mean were you preferentially earcocking one ear and neglecting the other?
Anyway yay that your not partially deaf!

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