Born with SSD but don't actually know the defect causing it. Insight?
Hello, I'm a woman in my mid 20s and I have congenital SSD. I found this sub by accident while trying to find out (to no avail) if my deaf ear could have an impact on the way the hot humid weather thats plaguing Ontario rn is making me feel ill. Didn't even know the term single sided deafness and mono hearing until 20 minutes ago!
So, I brought up my deaf ear once to my doctor a few years ago and I was brushed off. Planning on probably pushing the topic but in the meantime I'd like to get some insight I suppose (???)
I grew up doing regular hearing tests that bordered on painful due to how loud they'd end up escalating the sound in my deaf ear. I'm talking makes my brain hurt, sometimes slightly nauseous loud. I could kind of 'hear' the sound when it was loud in my deaf side but in the sense that it was just the vibrations traveling to my good ear. Was told time and time again that because I lack even a slight ability to hear in that ear that I can't get hearing aids and iirc, implants (my memory is bad though so don't fully take my word for it on the latter). I'm unsure if this is a common thing among those with congenital SSD.
My right ear has perfect hearing on the flipside if that helps. I've only had ear infections twice my whole life and they both happened after I reached 20 years old.
Because I've been half deaf all my life it's very normal to me and I practically never think about it except for when it affects something, so I never second guessed it until an EMT that I was talking to about my tongue tie told me very seriously that I should get it looked into as not knowing why was kind of worrying.
In case anyone asks about records, I have various other physical problems as well as mental health problems, most inherited from my parents, and they always made sure that I was aware of the problems I had and was educated on them, so it's not a matter of the cause being hidden from me. Both of my parents have/had bad memories (which I inherited lel) so I think they genuinely just forgot. Parents are divorced from a young age (don't give me sympathy it was a good thing lol) and I lived with my mom so if anyone knew or atleast had paperwork it would've been her, but she passed in my late teens so that information is long gone by now. Dad has lost a lot of his belongings over the years and has brain damage on top of general memory problems AND wasn't usually the one taking me to appts so he def doesn't have any info for me. I wouldn't be surprised if documentation from when I was tested as a baby is long gone too.
I've always been sensitive to weather changes and have TMJ issues. The TMJ issues are probably from growing up tongue tied and not related but I'm mentioning it just in case. I also on occasion get migraines, usually initially unpainful ocular before it turns into a fully painful head migrane. I also have balance problems, but I'm Dyspraxic so... unsure if it's completely related but I have no doubt that it plays a part in making it more obvious.
I cant think of anything else to mention so feel free to ask about anything else that might be relevant. Thank you for reading my word salad.
Edit: I was suffering from heat exhaustion when I wrote this so it ended up being more word saladly than I usually write, sorry!