@bttacampbell My son Yu Xia who we adopted from China when he was six and weighing 25 pounds had a cholesteatoma. He also had cleft lip and palate and is deaf in the that ear. He had it surgically removed in Boston by a top surgeon (Dr Volk)sp who has probably since retired as Yu Xia is 30 now. It was quite large and extensive as it was wrapped around major blood vessels. It was a lengthy surgery. I am happy to say he had a good recovery and has had no recurrence of the cholesteatoma. irene5

My husband was born deaf with a hard cleft palate and cleft lip with no left nostril. After the multiple surgeries to repair his lip and nostril and cleft palate, they reconstructed his hearing in his left ear.
He was hard of hearing through his early years until a cholesteotoma took his hearing in his left ear and they reconstructed his right ear, primarily his ear drum and one bone that was missing.

Through his teenage years and in into his adult life, he continued to battle cholesteotomas in his left ear with repeated removals and treatments following the Procedure, with steroid ear drops and Cipro ear drops and then Ciprodex when it became available. (CAUTION: do not use this product!)

When he was in his late thirties, his body began to literally fall apart. (He was an electrician by trade, carpenter on the side.) His final cholesteotoma removal was tricky. The tumor in his left ear was huge and extended through the ear canal and into the skull. After the surgery, on our way home from Denver, he began leading cerebrospinal fluid. We had to make an emergency trip back to Denver from out Wyoming home through a January Blizzard for him to have emergency brain surgery and seal the perforation into the brain from the ear canal. They removed all excess tissue in the canal and cauterized it. He has no future chance of reconstruction in that ear. No cholesteotoma again but no hearing except through a hearing aid.

Several years later, we were informed that the pronounced hearing loss that he was experiencing was being caused by the deterioration of the the natural bones in his right ear which were reconstructed from his body when he was a child and allowed him to hear.

His specialist wanted to perform another surgery in his ravaged and scarred right ear. Clean it out, much like what he has done with his left a couple of years earlier, replace the deteriorating human bones with titanium bones and rebuild his tympanic membrane.

He would have a 50/50 chance of hearing normally again but he would hear something hopefully but it was not a guarantee. Doing nothing would definitely cause permanent deafness to result by the end of the year, probably before Christmas.

Our family prepared for the next month by learning basic sign language as our own family sign short cuts which we still use today, and he had the surgery.

He has partial hearing in his right ear which continues to slowly deteriorate as he ages and is completely deaf in his left ear. He needs two hearing aids which the cat destroyed about 2 years ago and we haven’t been to replace due to limited, fixed income.

The years of taking ORAL and OTIC STEROIDS have ravaged his body. In addition, his total surgery count is 39. According to doctors, the trauma of repetitive injury and surgical repair to his body in 55 years has created severely arthritic joints, blown and dislocated joints, replaced and reconstructed joints, and nerve pain that ravages his entire body day and night and prevents him from working a job. Hence, he is and has been disabled for almost fifteen years.

In addition to this scenario, he is my caregiver due to the fact that I developed CRPS, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Type 2, otherwise known as Causalgia, the most painful disease known to mankind, seizures, migraines, severe arthritis, and IBD.

My husband, James is my soulmate, my love, and the strongest man I know.

He takes care of me and reminds me together we are strong and without Jesus, we can do nothing.

If we can answer any questions, please shoot them my way.