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Otosclerosis: symptoms
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Symptoms of otosclerosis are a progressive hearing loss with a certain speed and a sense of noise in the ears. The periods of stabilization are followed by periods of significant deterioration of hearing, but regression of hearing loss, like deafness, never occurs. Rarely observed rapid development of the disease, characteristic of the so-called juvenile form, in which pronounced hearing loss develops in a short period of time. According to a number of authors, for the period from 20 to 40 years, 70-80% of cases of the first manifestation of otosclerosis occur. Hearing loss with otosclerosis, as a rule, is bilateral, and between its appearance on one and the other side can pass from several months to years. A characteristic feature of otosclerosis is a relatively better perception of speech in terms of noise than in silence - paracusis willisii (Willisia symptom, Willis phenomenon, paracosis). Symptom is found on average in half of patients with otosclerosis, it is more characteristic for the expressed fixation of the stapes provided the level of bone sound conduction is preserved. With the development of a mixed form of hearing loss, the frequency of paracosis detection decreases. Another symptom characteristic of otosclerosis is described by J. Toynbee (Toynbee symptom) and consists in an obscure perception of speech, especially when several people talk together.
Noise in the ears is another constant symptom of the disease, occurring in 67-98% of patients. Its localization is different - it's one or both ears, less often the head. At the onset of the disease, noise is noted only in silence, with an increase in the level of hearing loss its intensity increases. More characteristic is low-frequency noise, the presence of high-frequency noise may indicate concomitant diseases of vascular genesis. Up to a quarter of patients with otosclerosis complain of heaviness, a feeling of pressure in the ear.
Symptoms of the defeat of the vestibular apparatus are less characteristic for patients with otosclerosis. The frequency of their detection varies from 25 to 28%, but a number of studies have not revealed a vestibular symptomatology in patients with otosclerosis.
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