COVID hearing loss reversal? Any ideas?

A few months after. I thought my right hearing aids were malfunctioning, made an appointment with the assistant, who scheduled a hearing test and ENT’s PA but they were full for a couple of months.

The first thing the PA asked was if I had COVID. I told her some months ago, I couldn’t be sure. And she said it’s common for this to occur even as far as a year after COVID.

My hearing has been stable for decades, so this sudden drop in one ear is very disturbing.

So I’m grasping on straws, and wondering what I can do? I’m probably going to find another ENT for a second opinion, but who, depends on my insurance.

If I get some good info here, I’ll be better prepared to ask the new ENT intelligent questions.

@Bimodal_user said:

When SSHL took place?

I mean how long time ago. Last week? A 3 months ago? In this sense.

I’m sorry for your loss. I’ve had two sudden sensorineural losses so can relate.

Steroids (prednisone or equivalent) have a 50% chance of restoring hearing following a sudden sensorineural loss if treatment is started with 48 hours of symptom onset.

The chance of hearing restoration drops rapidly after this and very few cases show benefit if treatment is started more than 7 days after loss onset. Your hearing now is likely where it will remain.

If your loss is now asymmetrical I recommend seeing another ENT. Other causes of asymmetric loss need to be ruled out as some of these are things that can affect your general health and you’ll want to know about them.

If your audiologist hasn’t already adjusted your hearing aids I’d ask them to do this.

I agree with the second opinion with another ENT.

I was fully vaccinated when I got COVID, and it was gone in a day, so I guess it could have been worse.

I got a dose of the antiviral (I forget the name) in the evening and by lunchtime the next day I was back to normal.

Then some months later, I noticed the right ear wasn’t hearing as well. Then the ENT office delays.

It might be permanent, but I’m not going down without looking for a solution.

It makes having conversations with people very difficult, especially in moderately noisy places or worse.

We’ve had several people through since Covid who’ve developed/progressed a SSHL. Usually SN, but some have initially presented as mixed losses.

The only instances of reversal were where the steroid dose was early (within a week), but usually less. One had an 80% recovery, the other about 50%. Other times where people already had a loss , they didn’t always get intervention in time; some assumed it was mask wearing or their hearing aids not working properly.

One guy in his 30’s; no previous issues, has a flat 70dB sensorineural RHS loss, from nothing, practically overnight. Didn’t seek medical assistance at the time: truck driver. Permanent loss.
Fortunately no further progression on either ear.

Neville, I’m not going to beat myself up over what I could have or should have done earlier. I will try to learn a lesson from it, though.

Bimodal, yes, it was Paxlovid. I was on vacation, probably waited too long to see the doctor, went to the emergency room around 11 PM with hypoxia, and out by noon the nest day.

Time to move forward. I’m still researching on PubMED and even though it’s looking less likely, I’m not giving up yet.

I’m sure someone on here is going to come in and say I’m CI obsessed just because it’s been on my plate lately and on my mind and I’ve been throwing up some positive comments, but here’s a nice little video I just came across with patients discussing their CI activation experiences, which you may find interesting.

Oh, I didn’t know you had enough left in the bad ear to contribute much to music listening?

As per the guy in the video, some people do okay with music. But if you have to depend on the other ear for music anyway then you can always just turn the implant off when you’re doing music stuff and you’ll be in the same place you are now.

@BobbyBoomer said:

Unless things have changed since I last read about them, they don’t do music.

This is not totally true. It may be for those that don’t rehabilitate music or just don’t try but for some music is pretty darn good. This includes musicians.

For those that lose their hearing suddenly they have a much higher chance of doing very well with CI.

Neville has given you some good information too.

Sorry about your loss.
Good luck getting all this figured out.

I think you probably have read about music with CI in people who are (almost) completely deaf without that device.

However, experiences in people who have relatively better or perfect hearing in the better ear are completely different in general.

For them, listening to music takes place mainly through the better ear, and CI complements these sounds.

I don’t feel comfortable posting my audiogram online.

What I read about CI is that they don’t do fine tuning for pitch. In other words, a few cents sharp or flat won’t register.

Playing the sax, and singing, means I have to work to stay on pitch. With the sax it’s reed pressure, and the voice, vocal cord muscle control.

Also, I’m going to be 79 next month, so something that invasive might not be the best solution.

So far in my research, I’ve negated a dozen “snake oil” solutions as not worthy to try, even if they were free. But I’m still looking.

There is a lot of peer-reviewed info out there, it just takes time to weed through it all and find articles that might pertain to me. So far, that hasn’t turned up much.