Superior Canal Dehiscence

[Kuwaitin08]

Situation- I have been suffering from serious ringing in my ears for roughly the last decade or so along with very sensitive hearing. Among those symptoms, I have a slew of other issues that are currently unimportant to this post but some of my other issues were vertigo and occasional memory loss. After countless trips to the doctors, audiologists and ENT's I was finally diagnosed with tinnitus and hyperacusis.

Claims for disability were filed and after a few battles, I was awarded 10% with hyperacusis and tinnitus combined but I was denied for the vertigo and memory loss.

After a few more years of testing for balance issues and dizziness, Cat Scans and MRI's I now have a diagnoses of superior canal dehiscence. It is a pretty rare condition that is a royal pain in the butt to diagnose but here I am. 

Does anyone know how this is rated? I've read some articles that says it rates similar to Meniere's Disease and Tullio's Syndrome and yet read others that say it rates as simple hearing loss. Luckily I am able to show the onset of symptoms started during my last deployment with medical records so I don't believe it should be an issue to service connect it.

I'm currently in the process of putting together a fully developed claim to submit. I'll be adding all paperwork from all previous submissions for tinnitus, vertigo, hyperacusis and more to hopefully get it squared away. Lord willing it will be a large check coming from a few years of back payments.

Any assistance you could provide would be appreciated.

 

[lodidoddi]

I did not have this in service but have it now. I want to know if this was caused by loud noise and want to talk to other vets who have this and honor service connected

[broncovet]

Caluza elements require a CURRENT diagnosis...not a diagnosis in service.  This is a big difference.  

You need an "in service EVENT".  

For example, did you work in close proximity to weapons being fired?  Those can be very loud, damaging ears.  Did you work near aircraft?  Jet engine noise is, frankly deafening.  

Sometimes the VA uses your MOS.  Now, the Navy does not use "MOS", but I also know just because you may have a MOS of a personelman, (human resources, the kind usually not in battle, but in offices to take care of other troops questions about insurance benefits, leave, etc. etc), does not mean you were necessarily working in that field.  You may have been a personelman, but your CO (commanding officer) may well have placed you else where, such as a cook or something else, wherever he thought you were needed.  

So, to demonstrate (aka document) noise exposure in service, there are several ways, "if" indeed, your audiologist report says your vertigo is from loud noise exposure.  

There are at least 2 types of loud noise exposure:

1.  A single blast of extremene noise, such as an IED going off in close proximity.  A single blast of extreme noise can cause varying degrees of hearing loss/tinnitus depending on degree of the noise and your proximity to the blast.  

2.  Prolonged exposure of noise over time.  This often happens to military people who, for example, work on flight decks, and were not offered ear protection way back when.  Jet engine noise, or other loud noises repeatedly can cause hearing loss over time.  So can repeated gunfire with defective or missing hearing protection.  

    You can sometimes document military noise exposure with a "buddy letter".  Let's use an example (dont use my example, its hypothetical only).  You were assigned duty as a cook.  However, after arriving on duty, it was discovered they had far too many cooks and not enough flight deck hands.  So, your CO decided you would work on the flight deck, but he did not want to change your rating, you were still a cook.  

    In this instance, you had a friend who worked with you and he trained you.  He had no idea why they trained a cook to do this, he thought you should have had some aircraft training, but they sent you instead, so he had no choice but to train you.  He was pleased, however, how well you picked it up, and you 2 became friends because you live in the same state, and keep in touch.  

   In this case, your buddy could write a letter testifying he say you regularly working 40 hours a week or more on the flight deck exposed to jet engine noise.  This may suffice as a buddy letter to establish noise exposure.  Your buddy probably can not diagnose hearing loss, but he can relate that the sound of the jet engines was deafening and you could not hear for 2 hours after a plane landed or took off because your ears rang.  

    This is an example of how a buddy letter may help document noise exposure.   In my case, my barracks were at the end of the runway.  Yep, planes landing had to gun it to clear my building I slept in.  I found my exact barracks online in google maps, demonstrating it was only about a couple hundred yards from the end of the runway,.  

    I specifically recalled training there, where the supervisor, when a plane flew overhead, we had to take a 15 minute break because we could not hear for 15 minutes while he was teaching classes.  It was frustrating for him and us.  I seem to recall maybe a half dozen planes taking off per day.  (Landing was not quite as noisey.). 

    No hearing protection was provided, and, we now know that is a huge mistake for anyone working near jet engines.  Employees at airports wear mandantory hearing protection near jet engines.  

[Lemuel]

Do you have a history of a TBI or being close to an explosion while in the military? 

CTE cannot be proven until autopsy, but you are expressing several symptoms.  I have had tinnitus from outgoing 5-inch gunfire from 1963-64.  Later had a TBI in 1969 so I have some of the symptoms of CTE which include difficulty remembering to take medications, so I now have a "higher level of care" nurse set up a dispenser to insure I take the meds and do not overtake because I do not remember if I did take my seizure med or not.  (in line for SMC-T, I think)

The outgoing gunfire can also cause TBI, but the symptoms usually follow more than I was exposed to on the USS SPERRY when the captain, shooting for Admiral needed experience firing the 5-inch gun on board.  It was decommissioned to stop him after about three weekend training missions on the gun.

Anyone with more than 300 rounds of outgoing or a nearby mortar or artillery round with dizziness or a nosebleed caused by it should put in for TBI.  Difficulty is the medic often did not report in the medical record because they did not take them out in the field.  Only used tags for evacuations and rarely reported those incidents where the individual was not evacuated for hospital treatment.  But the company log would report incoming and outgoing and which squads or other units were involved.  Your personnel record will report your assignment.

Because of my TBI symptoms and not being able to hold a job, I did a study at the NIH Library over several years to understand nearly going berserk, suicide ideation, subtle memory problems.  Medically I understand what should be, but that does not mean it will not be an uphill battle on the claim. 

Current victims of IEDs are being treated for TBI in the service and therefore I would suspect they are being compensated for their TBI.

What is not being treated or diagnosed as a residual of TBI is the 1918 Babinski neurological diagnosis of anosognosia which leads to suicide and is probably the primary cause of the high suicide rate among veterans being at nearly 2.5 times the national average.  (That average includes non-combat veterans whose suicide rate is lower than the national average.) I would expect the suicide rate among TBI victims and cerebral malaria victims to be much higher than the average veteran rate.

I wish I was up to continuing the fight on this.  Have thought about the Chaplin Colonel who took a long gun, sat on his records and blew his brains out in a VAMC parking lot a few years ago.  Would do the same if I thought it would do any good.  His did not.

Edited January 29 by Lemuel
clarify

[lodidoddi]

No I was Supply in the Marine Corps so no TBI. With that said I was exposed to the annual rife qualification plus stationed for a month around helicopters and harriers on a flight deck. 

[Lemuel]

If your sinuses are susceptible to bouncing the floor of the brain, the helicopters create the sudden changes in air pressure similar to the blasting of outgoing.

The two items you mentioned are enough for the noise trauma tinnitus you say you have been granted service connection for.

I would look to the PAC ACT for the other symptoms.  Sounds like you need a neurological work up that includes a neurobehavioral test conducted over at least a couple of weeks and an MRI of the brain.  Rule out previous "bleeding on the brain" and/or a brain tumor.

I take it no TBI incidents before or after the service?  I was just an independent duty Navy Corpsman, blue water, not green though I worked medical boards at Camp Pendleton for 8 months in 1967-68.  Because of my own TBI residuals, I may not be the best reference though the last neuro still had me with a residual 126 verbal and a problematic 98 visual spatial.  And now I am losing my vocabulary.  That is to say trouble bringing up the word I want to use at times.