Sudden Hearing Loss--Complete or Partial--Please Read

[sophie]

Reading the thread on Tinnitus or ringing in the ears I thought I needed to post this and didn't want to hijack the thread.

My wife got up on Aug 11th and had severe hearing loss and roaring in her left ear. Over 20 years ago she had surgery in the right ear and the hearing never came back (42%) but that was the risk (Meniere's Disease). On the 11th she called her ear doctor and didn't stress the importance of the problem and they couldn't see her for a few days. I took her to our family doctor and he put her on a regimen of Sudaphed and Benadryl for 5 days which done no good. On the 18th I called her ear doctor and stressed the problem and they said it sounds like "Sudden Hearing Loss" and I will have the nurse call. Well **** yes it is sudden hearing loss. Nurse called back and said bring her in right away. This was a week to the day after she woke up with the problem. Doctor examined her and had a tech perform a hearing test in the chamber and she had lost 60% hearing in the left ear (her good ear). He put her on 40 mg of prednisone for 13 days and she goes back Monday. It has not done any good. He said it is a VIRUS and affects people differently. He said it had grown to epidemic proportion in some areas. I done some research on the Sudden Hearing Loss and was quite suprised how frequent it has become. Most research I found said about the same thing on the hearing loss and that it is caused by a virus and definitely needs to be looked at immediately.The internet is full of the information about this. They stated that if it was not diagnosed and treatment administered within 48 hours with steriods that the chance of hearing returning was not good. We can only hope for the best.She says she can put up with the loss of hearing but the roaring as she described it in her ears is a real problem. I lost about 20% in my left ear about a week later and both my ears ring, especially the left from shooting without ear protection years ago and 47 years of air tools and all kinds of noise so I am used to this. My reason for posting this is to warn all concerned of the this Virus the doctors speak of. I have never heard of anything like this before and wanted all to be aware of this. If anybody has Sudden Hearing Loss for no reason it is very important to seek help immediately and within 48 hours for sure. Most of us guys that have shot all our lives have hearing loss and ringing in the ears to some degree.

Thanks for listening.

 

[gdnagle]

Thanks for the warning.

Prayers for your wife's complete recovery.

 

[smike308]

Sophie--I went through this in the late spring early summer. I was fortunate, my hearing returned. I dealt with it through the VA health system, which was a mistake. It took weeks to get in and by then, my hearing returned. The audiologist seemed to be somewhat aware of it and said there was nothing to be done about it now. He did say that since I had it once, that I was more susceptable to a recurrence. He said that the only possible treatment was steroids(with limited success). He stressed how important immediate treatment was(laughable in the VA healthcare system). Interestingly enough, I visited an old army buddy in another state for a few days, after my hearing had returned. He developed the same thing, the last day we were together. That was about 7 weeks ago now. His hearing has not come back in the affected ear. He finally was able to see a VA audiologist yesterday(see a pattern here with the VA?), who told him his hearing loss was most likely permanent. The audiologist also told him that since he was diabetic, that he wasn't a candidate for the prednisone treatment. Sorry to ramble on, but your post struck a nerve. I have left out some of the boring details to spare you guys. Needless to say, if anyone reading this thread experiences something like this, don't screw around with it. It's very real.

 

[Straightshooter2]

My mother went through that about 20 or so years ago. Woke up one morning with about 80-90% hearing loss in both ears. Hearing aids only helped a little.

CW

 

[H Richard]

I have a close friend that it happened to, and he still hasn't had any return. He lost about 80% of the hearing in one ear. It has now settled down to no intermittent buzzing which he had for nearly a year, and the Dr thinks that he may benefit from a hearing aid.