Christa Bird, treated for pulsatile tinnitus

• Christa experienced spurts of a whooshing sound in her ear that got worse when her heartbeat went up.
• This condition is called pulsatile tinnitus and it is a rare form of tinnitus.
• She was hearing the noise in spurts. It wasn’t a constant whooshing, but it was just little bits that she was hearing all the time that got worse if her heartbeat went up.
• For Christa, the new procedure was a simple experience for her and it alleviated the noise she was hearing.
• She recommends to others that you really need to be an advocate for your own health. She was so glad to be connected with the right doctors and to be plugged in with such special people at the Health System.

Lavina Cox, treated for pulsatile tinnitus

• Lavina was experiencing a higher pitched and then a swishing sound in both ears.
• It was maddening because it affected her concentration and sleep.
• She had the procedure, left the hospital on Wednesday before Thanksgiving and was able to cook dinner on Thursday.
• The procedure has changed her life.
• She was happy to have the  “A team” of doctors and was so happy with how Dr. Eversole takes great care of the whole person and how his team did a phenomenal job.

Dr. Koji Ebersole, director, endovascular neurosurgery, The University of Kansas Health System

• There is a new, minimally invasive treatment that helps alleviate this condition.
• The procedure is called venous sinus stenting. The vein that gets narrowed is a venous sinus, a large outlet vein from the skull draining into the neck. We are stenting that sinus open to eliminate the tinnitus.
• The narrowing of this vein is the most common cause. The question is what causes the narrowing of the vein and that part is not yet understood.
• Pulsatile tinnitus is the most uncommon form of tinnitus. Tinnitus otherwise is a very common symptom that most patients experience as an annoyance.
• Tinnitus is a sensation that you are hearing in your ear and nobody else hears -- ringing is a common description.
• A buzzing or whooshing pulsatile tinnitus is when those sensations are in time with your heartbeat. That is a different beast.

Wednesday, Mar. 13 at 8 a.m. is the next Open Mics with Dr. Stites. How will history remember the COVID pandemic? We’ll put COVID in historical context with how the world suffered and learned through other pandemics.

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