Sudden Hearing Loss

[Gregory Altman]

11 days ago I lost the hearing in my left ear. It was sudden and virtually completely gone! I do have tinnitus, very load, in fact, most of the time. It's a loud hissing sound.

My ENT gave me an injection of steroids at the first office visit and a subsequent 11 day regimen of Prednisone. I am half way through that regimen. I have had no improvement whatsoever in my hearing or the tinnitus. I have started experiencing headaches, similar to those I experienced prior to my surgery for Trigeminal Neuralgia. That conditioned occurred on the right side of my head. I also have suffered with double vision in my left eye for the last year. That also was sudden onset.

I feel as if I'm wasting my time with Prednisone.

An MRI with contrast is scheduled for this Thursday. That will be two weeks from the initial onset. It is my understanding that if an effective treatment is not applied with the first two weeks, my hearing will be gone for good and the tinnitus will have to be addressed through hearing aid technology. The Prednisone is supposed to be aiming at a potential virus as a cause.

The MRI will look for a neuroma or some other organic cause.

Is there anything else anyone has ever been through to try to figure out the sudden onset of hearing loss with tinnitus?

 

[Guest8382]

Yes, you should read Meeruf's story. After diving once he experienced sudden hearing loss in one ear and developed severe tinnitus. (link: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...ranny-of-tinnitus-my-journey.2717/#post-24370) However, as you can tell from the story he is coping very well and has habituated to his tinnitus. Recently I had contact with him and he told me he's still doing very well and the sound in his ear has diminished. If you have other questions please feel free to ask me! And in the meantime I would like to say; keep it up! Kind regards, Tjeerd

 

[ChiGuy]

@Gregory Altman : I'm sorry about your hearing loss. A little over 5 months ago, I lost some hearing in both my ears (mild). From my experience, you will need to be your own advocate. A vast majority of situations like ours will be diagnosed as "idiopathic" meaning of unknown cause. There are certain symptoms that should warrant further investigation beyond the "default" idiopathic diagnosis. Since my hearing loss was in both ears (very rare), I wanted to press further with what happened. Unfortunately, all of the doctor's I have seen don't share my drive for further investigation. I'm fortunate as my health insurance allows for me to see specialists without referrals. So I will be taking it upon myself to move forward.

As far as your situation goes, I would definitely press for a diagnosis. The reason I feel this way is because of your surgery and double vision. There are a bunch of tests that can be done for diagnosing various conditions from autoimmune to Lyme disease. I hope this helps.

 

[Fabrikat]

Is there anything else anyone has ever been through to try to figure out the sudden onset of hearing loss with tinnitus?

Fellow posters @Lorac, @brownbear and @Mettafort have experienced similar issues to yours. Their posts may offer some helpful information, more likely their earlier ones.

 

[GregCA]

I feel as if I'm wasting my time with Prednisone.

You could be, but then again it's worth a shot (no pun intended), as the window for it to give you better odds of recovery is pretty small.
You're doing the right thing.

 

[Shem]

Hi Greg,

I'm in exactly the same boat as you. See my post from a few minutes ago. Lost hearing in my left ear 7 days ago. Ringing developed into constant severe tinnitus after a couple of days, which is active right now. As I am sure you have been, I've been doing a ton of reading, with the benefit that I have some Dr's in the family, so I have good access to medical journal searches. I am NOT a Dr, but based on my reading and discussion with my ENT and getting some second opinions, the basic bottom line is that the prednisone treatment coupled with the injections is the recommended course of action, but it seems like the prognosis varies on the level of hearing loss, the frequency loss, or even just which study you read. I'm also getting the MRI done (tomorrow), but am assuming it will be clean.

Good luck.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Perhaps you will find the information at the link below to be helpful...
http://www.masseyeandear.org/for-pa...ation/diseases-and-conditions/sudden-deafness

 

[Lorac]

Gregory,
Welcome to the forum. Did the prednisone help you at all? Did your MRI with contrast reveal anything? Please update. I experienced sudden unilateral hearing loss and tinnitus too, but I do not suffer headaches or double vision. I didn't improve with prednisone and my MRI did not reveal any tumor. You have been through much already. I hope things get better for you.

 

[Gregory Altman]

Lorac, the prednisone accomplished nothing, but I understood that it may not at the time it was prescribed. The MRI showed nothing that would cause the sudden deafness. I have received, on a trial basis, a hearing device. It is helping me regain some semblance of "normalness". The expense of the device will be solely my responsibility, as Medicare does not cover it. Sorry to see you are suffering with this as well. Thank you for your concern and comments.

 

[Chrisarti]

I did have the same experience in early December 2017: Firstly I have had tinnitus for about 4 years. Then suddenly out of the blue, I had sudden sensorineural hearing loss in my left hear. Went to ENT doc of course quickly started the Prednisone therapy (tablets only) no injection although doc assured me if pills were not successful that was an option at a later date. It did work for me. It took about 4 weeks. I was on medication for 10 days. It took about 3 weeks after stopping medication to recover hearing. I still have the tinnitus. It's a different tinnitus than the other I habituated to so now I'm working on habituating to this one. I have to mention I have never had any MRI's done. I have had other hearing tests done. Nothing is written in stone and I know you can recover your hearing even months later. So do not despair things can and often do change.