- Joined
- Feb 27, 2003
- Messages
- 4,225
- Reaction score
- 143
Lynn Steinman has a new scar on her collarbone, another behind her ear, but a tentative smile on her face. The scars are a small price to pay, she says, for the chance to rid herself of the ringing in her ears that has plagued her life for more than a decade.
"Imagine a kid's tin whistle blowing in your ear 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Steinman, 56, of Aurora, said Thursday from her hospital bed in Milwaukee, Wis.
Last week, Steinman became the second person in the world to be treated for severe tinnitus with a brain-stimulation device usually used to treat Parkinson's disease, tremors and other brain disorders.
Today, doctors at the Medical College of Wisconsin may activate the device so they can monitor it for the next two weeks to see if it gives her relief.
Or, they might decide to leave it off for two weeks, before turning it on for the following two weeks, in an effort to more objectively gauge the difference the device makes.
Steinman is part of a blind clinical trial. Patients aren't told whether the device is turned on or off.
"I'd better be able to tell when it's on or off," Steinman, a licensed practical nurse, said with a quick laugh.
Her neurosurgeon, Brian Kopell, implanted an electrode near her right ear and made an incision near her collarbone large enough to implant a battery pack and magnet, connected by wires to the ear.
"The idea is to interrupt the signals in the brain to make the noise go away," Steinman said in a phone interview.
Not surprisingly, she hopes doctors actually turn it on today, rather than wait two weeks.
Steinman said that by nosing around, she found out that the first person to have the procedure got something like 90 percent relief.
Her sister, Mary Eldridge, said doctors told her it may take Steinman several months to adjust to the device and get maximum relief from the ringing.
Some 50 million Americans have some degree of tinnitus; 1 million to 2 million have it so severely that it interrupts daily living.
Steinman says hers started 14 years ago when she had a bad cold. "The cold went away," she said, "but the ringing didn't."
She endured the affliction fairly well for a decade, but about four years ago it got markedly worse and the problem has been growing since.
"I even contemplated suicide once," she said. "I asked myself, 'How can I go on day after day like this?' "
It was on a tinnitus Web site that she learned about the clinical trial.
"It stuck out like a neon sign to me," she said. "I thought, 'If no one volunteers for this, how are we going to find the answer?' "
Steinman has paid for her own flights to Wisconsin, but the manufacturer of the device paid for the surgery. She stays at a sister's home when she's not at the Milwaukee hospital.
Regardless of whether the device is turned on today, Steinman will fly home to Colorado on Tuesday.
Three times a day she'll dial a phone number and answer a few questions about how her ears are doing.
Two weeks later, she'll fly back to Wisconsin so the doctors can examine her again.
"I'm hoping for a good result," she said. "Not just for me, but so other people can get some help, too."
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4289251,00.html
"Imagine a kid's tin whistle blowing in your ear 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Steinman, 56, of Aurora, said Thursday from her hospital bed in Milwaukee, Wis.
Last week, Steinman became the second person in the world to be treated for severe tinnitus with a brain-stimulation device usually used to treat Parkinson's disease, tremors and other brain disorders.
Today, doctors at the Medical College of Wisconsin may activate the device so they can monitor it for the next two weeks to see if it gives her relief.
Or, they might decide to leave it off for two weeks, before turning it on for the following two weeks, in an effort to more objectively gauge the difference the device makes.
Steinman is part of a blind clinical trial. Patients aren't told whether the device is turned on or off.
"I'd better be able to tell when it's on or off," Steinman, a licensed practical nurse, said with a quick laugh.
Her neurosurgeon, Brian Kopell, implanted an electrode near her right ear and made an incision near her collarbone large enough to implant a battery pack and magnet, connected by wires to the ear.
"The idea is to interrupt the signals in the brain to make the noise go away," Steinman said in a phone interview.
Not surprisingly, she hopes doctors actually turn it on today, rather than wait two weeks.
Steinman said that by nosing around, she found out that the first person to have the procedure got something like 90 percent relief.
Her sister, Mary Eldridge, said doctors told her it may take Steinman several months to adjust to the device and get maximum relief from the ringing.
Some 50 million Americans have some degree of tinnitus; 1 million to 2 million have it so severely that it interrupts daily living.
Steinman says hers started 14 years ago when she had a bad cold. "The cold went away," she said, "but the ringing didn't."
She endured the affliction fairly well for a decade, but about four years ago it got markedly worse and the problem has been growing since.
"I even contemplated suicide once," she said. "I asked myself, 'How can I go on day after day like this?' "
It was on a tinnitus Web site that she learned about the clinical trial.
"It stuck out like a neon sign to me," she said. "I thought, 'If no one volunteers for this, how are we going to find the answer?' "
Steinman has paid for her own flights to Wisconsin, but the manufacturer of the device paid for the surgery. She stays at a sister's home when she's not at the Milwaukee hospital.
Regardless of whether the device is turned on today, Steinman will fly home to Colorado on Tuesday.
Three times a day she'll dial a phone number and answer a few questions about how her ears are doing.
Two weeks later, she'll fly back to Wisconsin so the doctors can examine her again.
"I'm hoping for a good result," she said. "Not just for me, but so other people can get some help, too."
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4289251,00.html