One Of My Relative Consulted A ENT Specialist For A Tinnitus And Early Stage Breast Cancer Survivor Dr Advices Mactotal For 3 Months And I Am Not Sure How This Vitamin Capsule Will Help In Fixing The Problem?

Posted on Thu, 19 Jan 2023

Question: One of my relative consulted a ENT specialist for a Tinnitus problem in her right ear. She is also a early stage breast cancer survivor(2nd year after detection). Looking at her history doctor straight away suggested a brain MRI and the report is attached.

We have consulted the doctor again with MRI report and she was not able to tell us the reason for her problem. She also told audiometry is not needed as she don’t have any hearing loss.
She just gave Mactotal for 3 months and I am not sure how this Vitamin capsule will help in fixing the problem.

We have also consulted the radiologist who did the MRI to get his opinion again and he is absolutely sure that there is nothing concerning in right side and even the one mentioned in left side can be ignored as it is not a major finding according to him.

Kindly suggest what can be done next as she is suffering from this issue almost 2+ years now.

Answered by Dr. Dr. Naveen Kumar Nanjasetty (42 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Get Puretone audiometry done...

Detailed Answer:
Hi

Thanks for posting the query

I have gone through the query and understood the problem. My opinion is:

1. Tinnitus could be due to various issues which requires a thorough evaluation.
2. As the age progress one can have tinnitus because of the weakness of the sensitive inner ear nerves.
3. In your relative, the tinnitus could be either due to age related or secondary to chemotherapy/radiotherapy taken for the breast cancer.
4. I would suggest you to get puretone audiometry done to rule out nerve damage. This will give us a lead into this problem.
5. As MRI is normal, any lesions in the brain has been ruled out. Hence, the other causes need to be found out before arriving at a diagnosis.
6. Finally, if you could provide us an insight regarding the medicines used for the cancer treatment, I'll be able to help you in a better way.

Hope this answers your query; I'll be available for the follow up queries.

Regards
Dr. Naveen Kumar N.
ENT and Head & Neck Surgeon

Note: For further follow up on related General & Family Physician Click here.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad