The influencer — who boasts 2 million followers — said she will eventually need to get a cochlear implant
Credit: Caroline Lusk/TikTok
NEED TO KNOW
- Caroline Lusk is sharing her experience with hearing loss at the age of 23 after receiving a more official diagnosis
- In a TikTok posted on Feb. 22, the content creator shared that she went to a hearing specialist who said she has “significant, severe and, in some frequencies, profound hearing loss,” Lusk explained
- She told her 2 million followers that she will eventually need to get a cochlear implant, but for now, she was given hearing aids and will have a “precautionary” MRI
Caroline Lusk is opening up about her hearing loss at the age of 23 years old.
In recent weeks, the TikTok star has posted two videos about both her frustrations with her impeded hearing and the news she received about the situation after visiting a doctor. On Feb. 22, Lusk took to TikTok to update her 2 million followers on what a specialist concluded after her appointment, and she said the news she received "was worse than the news I was scared of getting."
The doctor gave her a hearing test to determine her hearing loss' degree of severity. Lusk said she thought she did okay, but she was surprised to learn her examination didn't turn up satisfactory results.
Credit: Caroline Lusk/Instagram
"So it goes … normal, mild, moderate, moderately severe, severe, profound, and profound is like deaf," she explained to her viewers. "I have significant, severe and, in some frequencies, profound hearing loss, which is bad."
Lusk continued to reflect on how "weird" it felt to experience a hearing problem at such a young age, and she noted that it was shocking to realize the extent of her issue.
"Like, how have I been doing that? How have I been navigating the world in that way? It really is such a testament to what your body can do and your body's ability to acclimate and survive," she said.
The content creator said that her left ear is worse than her right, so she will be getting an MRI for what she hopes are "precautionary" reasons. "Sometimes, a specific side being worse can indicate a tumor in your head. It's not super likely, and even if it did exist, it's not necessarily a worry that it'd be cancerous," said Lusk. "The worry would just be keeping an eye on the size of it and making sure that it's not touching stuff in my brain that it's not supposed to touch."
Lusk said that eventually she will have to get a cochlear implant, since her hearing will continue to worsen over time. For now, she has hearing aids, but she admitted she's not sure if she'll be sharing more about them since she's still grappling with her emotions about the diagnosis.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
"I wasn't gonna talk about any of this," said Lusk. "Then the day I got the diagnosis, I came home from the doctor, and I spent probably six hours on TikTok and Instagram just looking up variations of young girls with hearing aids, girls in their early twenties with hearing aids … videos about hearing aids, videos about hearing loss, videos about deafness at a young age. I was just searching for relatability and searching for somebody that made me feel less alone in that."
She continued, "I don't know to what degree i'm gonna talk about it going forward, but I just, like, if there's one girl that goes to the doctor today and gets the same diagnosis as me and is doing what I was doing that day and looking for people to bring her comfort, I want her to find this video."
Lusk hasn't responded to PEOPLE's request for comment.
Read the full article here
