Hi everyone, a quick question.
Is anyone aware of a person being born deaf (but with no other abnormalities) and a parent being diagnosed with spinocerebellar ataxia?
Hi, I was very interested in this question. My dad was practically deaf in both ears from birth and suffered terrible tinnitus, he had no other abnormalities but started to show spinocerebellar degeneration symptoms in his late 50’s. i have really bad tinnitus and bad hearing in my right ear and my youngest son has the same as me. We dont know for sure if his hearing problems were to do with his ataxia but the thought did cross our minds that it was because of his bad ears that his balance started to go. Then after neumerous MRI scans he finally got his diagnosis, we dont know what type he had or if it will be passed on to us. Hope this helps!
Thanks for your answer Gail. You see I was born with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, ie nerve damage. I currently have no other abnormalities and no one else in my family has deafness. My mum has had a chronic cough for 25 years which could be due to the nerves in her lungs or brain being hypersensitive to triggers (which may or may not be related to her ataxia). She’s had balance problems for about 10 years and this year was diagnosed with spinocerebellar ataxia. At this stage we don’t know if it’s hereditary or another yet to be established cause.
The cause of my deafness has never been identified (I assumed it was a viral infection but mum says she was never ill during her pregnancy). I’ve now asked my GP to refer me to a geneticist to see if they can find a genetic cause (especially if I plan to have kids myself)