Hearing, tinnitus and dizziness in Dubai

Hearing loss is usually gradual. Conversation in a restaurant starts to feel like work, the television creeps louder, and you begin watching faces to fill in the words you missed. Most people adapt long before they book an appointment.

The change can come from anywhere along the path the sound takes. Wax or a narrowed ear canal, fluid or pressure in the middle ear, a problem with the eardrum, the inner ear itself, or the nerve that carries the signal onward. Each of those is a different diagnosis with a different treatment, and they cannot be told apart by how loud the world sounds.

One situation is handled differently. Hearing that drops suddenly in one ear, over hours or a day, is looked at promptly rather than watched, because the assessment and the decisions that follow are time-sensitive.

Tinnitus in both ears is common, and it usually travels with a change in hearing. It tends to become noticeable in quiet rooms, at night, or after a period of noise exposure or stress. On its own, that pattern is familiar.

A different pattern deserves a proper work-up: tinnitus in one ear only, tinnitus that started suddenly, tinnitus that pulses in time with your heartbeat, or tinnitus that arrives together with dizziness or a drop in hearing. These are not diagnoses. They are reasons to measure.

The work-up is a full hearing test, middle-ear pressure, the inner ear's own responses, and, when the pattern calls for it, an MRI to exclude a growth on the hearing and balance nerve, an acoustic neuroma. Most of the time nothing dangerous is found. Most of the time is not a diagnosis.

The inner ear plays an important role in balance. Certain ear conditions can cause vertigo, dizziness, or a sensation that the surroundings are moving, and they do not all behave the same way.

The description matters more than the word. Seconds of spinning when you turn over in bed behaves differently from hours of spinning with hearing change and pressure in the ear, and both differ from a constant unsteadiness that is worse in the dark. Balance also draws on vision and on the neck, so the cervical spine forms part of the assessment when the history points there.

Telling these apart is what the examination is for. It is why the appointment begins with how, when and how long, before any equipment is switched on.

The clinic works with a PATH MEDICAL Sentiero platform, alongside ZEISS optics and video-endoscopy for the examination itself. Pure-tone audiometry maps the quietest sounds you detect at each pitch. Speech audiometry asks a different question: not what you hear, but how much you understand.

Tympanometry measures how the eardrum moves and what the pressure behind it is doing. Otoacoustic emissions, DPOAE and TEOAE, record the response of the inner ear without you having to answer anything. BERA, also called ABR, follows the signal along the hearing nerve into the brainstem, and VEMP tests the otolith organs of the inner ear, part of the balance system.

The tests are non-invasive and suitable for adults and children. Most involve headphones and a soft probe at the ear, and several run while you sit quietly or rest. The findings are shown and explained in the same appointment.