{"id":6123,"date":"2015-09-08T05:46:32","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T05:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=6123"},"modified":"2015-09-08T05:46:32","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T05:46:32","slug":"doctors-perform-life-changing-surgery-on-woman-plagued-by-internal-sounds-of-her-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/doctors-perform-life-changing-surgery-on-woman-plagued-by-internal-sounds-of-her-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors Perform Life-changing Surgery on Woman Plagued by Internal Sounds of Her Body"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"UCLA<\/a>
UCLA patient Rachel Pyne listens to her surgeons Dr. Quinton Gopen and Dr. Isaac Yang discuss her second surgery to patch a small hole in her inner ear. (Source: UCLA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sounds in Rachel Pyne\u2019s ears were deafening and inescapable. Her footsteps rumbled through her head like thunder. She could hear the thump of her heartbeat, her food digesting, and even the shifting of her eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was crazy,\u201d said Pyne, who started hearing her body\u2019s internal sounds in March of last year. \u201cI could hear my eyes swoosh around as I moved them back and forth, like moving your hand in water.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pyne also began to lose her balance and suffer debilitating dizziness and nausea. It wasn\u2019t long until her symptoms affected every aspect of her life. \u201cI couldn\u2019t fall asleep. I would lie there and wish that my head would stop spinning,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was chaos in my ears.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At 27, Pyne, a photographer from Merrillville, Indiana, had developed a rare condition known as superior semicircular canal dehiscence, or SSCD.<\/span><\/p>\n

[pullquote]After four years of operating on more than 60 SSCD patients together, Gopen and Yang have developed a minimally invasive surgical technique that patches the hole in the inner ear, restoring normal balance and hearing.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cBasically, it\u2019s a hole that develops between the inner ear and the brain,\u201d said Dr. Quinton Gopen, an ear surgeon in the department of head and neck surgery at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. \u201cThat region of the inner ear has sealed compartments with little fluid chambers, and occasionally a hole will develop in the bone and allow for these problems to arise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Because SSCD is such a rare condition, affecting an estimated one person per half million, patients often see several doctors before receiving a correct diagnosis, if ever. Pyne was examined by at least nine doctors and specialists all over the country, most of whom attributed her symptoms to migraines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne doctor told me I was just going to have to live with it,\u201d Pyne said. \u201cThat was devastating.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Gopen, this type of misdiagnosis is common. \u201cA lot of these patients are seeking psychiatric help because they\u2019re just mentally worn out,\u201d he said. \u201cThey can\u2019t escape the condition and it really kind of grinds them down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After seven months, Pyne had almost given up until she came across an online support group launched by a former patient of Gopen and his colleague, Dr. Isaac Yang, and learned about their approach to cases like hers. Last September, Pyne flew to Los Angeles to be examined by Gopen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Gopen diagnosed me within 15 minutes and said, \u2018Absolutely we can do surgery.\u2019 I was crying because I had been through so much,\u201d Pyne said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPatients are relieved to learn that this situation has become routine to us,\u201d said Yang, a UCLA neurosurgeon who partners with Gopen on each SSCD procedure. \u201cBecause we see a lot of these cases, we not only believe them when they say they can hear their eyeballs or neck muscles move, but we can help them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After four years of operating on more than 60 SSCD patients together, Gopen and Yang have developed a minimally invasive surgical technique that patches the hole in the inner ear, restoring normal balance and hearing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTraditionally, you\u2019d need to have a big middle fossa craniotomy,\u201d said Yang. \u201cThat\u2019s a type of surgery that requires a sizeable hole in your skull, which leaves a larger scar and requires a much longer recovery time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing now is performing the entire operation in a hole the size of a dime,\u201d said Yang, noting that in a standard middle fossa craniotomy, the hole is as much as five times larger. \u201cThat allows these patients to get back to work and get back to their lives much sooner.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Recovery time is three weeks instead of six.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the operation begins, the surgeons use a CT scan and state-of-the-art probe to map the brain and determine precisely where to enter the skull.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur neuro-navigation system is like using GPS for the brain that allows us to target that itty, bitty hole between the inner ear and the brain,\u201d Yang said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese holes in the bone are only a millimeter or two wide,\u201d said Gopen. \u201cThat\u2019s about the size of the hole in the tip of an ink pen, so we really need to be precise and know exactly where we\u2019re going.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Working in tandem, Yang opens the skull and lifts the brain away from the skull, which allows Gopen to access the space in between the ear and skull. Then Gopen pinpoints the tiny hole in the inner ear bone and plugs it with an artificial filler called bone wax. The entire procedure lasts roughly 90 minutes, and results are usually instantaneous.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I woke up from surgery I was like, \u2018Oh my gosh, it\u2019s gone!\u2019\u201d said Payne, who had her first surgery last November. \u201cLooking back, I\u2019m actually happy that so many doctors turned me away and told me they couldn\u2019t help, because Dr. Gopen and Dr. Yang did. I\u2019m just so thankful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Source: University of California Los Angels<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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