Waiting, waiting...

I saw Dr. K last Friday. He determined my ear looks healthy, but does feel based on my description of my prior symptoms that I did have an ear infection most likely. He thinks it's lingering and not quite all gone, so he put me on a 2 week, twice a day antibiotic (Augmentin) and then I will come back when it's finished to get a hearing test and follow up with him.
He's also putting me on a new steroid nasal spray, Qnasl. It's an aerosol mist instead of liquid spray. I really like it a lot better. This will hopefully continue to help with swelling in my ear and help keep the eustachian tube functioning better.

One thing he did notice is that my eardrum is retracted on my stapes. He's not sure if this is causing my issues or not. He feels my adhesions probably are coming back. At this point, if that is the case, we both agree that no further surgery should be done to my ear as I am making too much scar tissue as is. I emailed an FYI to Dr. S so he is in the loop too. Hopefully I'll have good concrete info to update with when I go back for my hearing exam.

I'm on day 4 of the antibiotic and it feels slightly less full/pressure in my ear.

Back To Square 1

Down to C2 again. Everything at 3 and higher sounds too whistley again, and at night when I lie down on the Esteem side I start to get feedback...ugh!!!!! I'm not sure at this point what to do. I guess the first step is going to be emailing Dr. S just to let him know and getting in to see Dr. K to see if there is anything wrong with the ear.

Decrease in function of Esteem
Vertigo like symptoms (room/floor seems to tilt and spin)
Ear feels really full
Some ear pain, a little achy and sharp
Ear pain when blowing my nose
Occassional headache only on my right side and right behind my eye and above ear.
Small amount of bloody discharge on my pillow a little over a week ago.

Setback

I had a bit of a setback since the last post. A few weeks ago, I started getting noticable swelling of my right cheek and also had either a really bad cold or sinusitis/ear infection. One of the doctors I work with looked at my eardrum too and she said it was really red, but no fluid that she could see. It really started to affect my hearing and I had to put the Esteem on C1 and get a z-pak antibiotic. The antibiotic helped, along with a slew of other meds like flonase, Zyrtec-D, dayquil, nyquil, and mucinex. Since then the swelling has gone away as well as the cold/infection, but I still have dizziness and the sense of fullness or fluid in my ear. I have been able to get to C3 most of the time but even that is pushing it. I'm getting a lot of the same shrill sounds that I had prior to the scar tissue removal surgery. I will admit, I'm frustrated. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of sense in getting an adjustment yet either because the West Bloomfield audiologist is not trained to adjust, so it would be an Envoy engineer. Audiologists are better at knowing what works for hearing. I'm kind of at the mercy of Envoy for that.
I am pretty sure I also have a dysfunctional eustachian tube, which I think was the case even before I had the Esteem implanted. I'm just noticing it a lot more now that the Esteem is in. I think it stays open when it's not supposed to, and then my breathing sounds like it's in my ear and I can't stand the sound of my voice because it's also right in my ear and so loud. Swallowing or chewing gum doesn't relieve it. It just eventually goes away on it's own.
I feel so bad complaining since I am pretty fortunate overall. The convenience is still so wonderful and I am so grateful to be able to hear all the time.