Cholesteatoma Surgery

There are different types of cholesteatoma surgery, and your doctor should be able to tell you which one he or she recommends. There are two main types of surgery:

Canal wall up, and
Canal wall down

Basically, canal wall up maintains your ear canal in whole. The doctor goes behind the ear and removes the cholesteatoma without disrupting the boney ear canal. With canal wall down, the procedure I had, the doctor removes part of the ear canal, creating a opening into the middle ear (this has actually been great as it has decreased my ear infections significantly). The canal wall down is usually used when the cholesteatoma has infected the canal wall.

Also, the doctor will let you know if the cholesteatoma has infected the hearing bones of the ear. In some cases the doctor will need to remove one, or all of these bones. He or she will then usually talk about creating prostehtic bones the regain hearing in the ear.

Please visit the cholesteatoma message boards below, to discuss with others your experience and gain from theirs.

Main Menu

Link To Message Boards (if you have a story please submit it here, thank you)
Link to More Stories

Home