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Superior Semicircular Dehiscence (SSCD)
Worried about your hearing loss? Do you complain about your hearing your eyes move or hearing your own voice more loudly?
To find more about the symptoms, causes, treatment, and best practices of Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence (SSCD), see below.
About the Disease
Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence (SSCD) is a rare medical condition of the inner ear leading to vestibular and auditory symptoms.
The symptoms arise because of the absence or thinning of the bony part of the labyrinth that is overlying the superior semicircular canal.
Patients with SSCD can experience vertigo and oscillopsia evoked by loud noises and also by activities that alter the intracranial (or middle ear) pressure, such as straining, sneezing or coughing.
Auditory manifestations of the syndrome include autophony (amplification of one’s own voice), hypersensitivity to noises, and a distinct conductive hearing loss revealed during audiometry. Some patients have either vestibular or auditory consequences, while some may have both.
A striking sign of SSCD, a sensation of oscillopsia, is described by patients as the swaying of the eyes or horizon in up and down direction or experiencing vertigo on an upward plane.
Some patients respond well when they know the cause of their symptoms and withdraw from the triggers that induce SSCD symptoms such as avoiding loud noises.
Those patients who do not show any improvement to trigger avoidance may have to undergo surgery. If the symptoms are severe, the avoidance of triggers will not be of much help. Symptoms like constant disequilibrium, autophony, extreme sound intolerance and pulsatile oscillopsia, may cause extreme uneasiness that do not get controlled by avoiding the triggers. (continue reading)