Lost almost all residual hearing on my right side overnight

HaHa @Baltazard good one. Not my team I’m afraid (Middlesbrough) 65 years, since I was In my teens. They have never won much except for the League cup, and one FA cup and one UEFA cup final appearance. Thank you.

Hi @TomS I’m hoping. I am hearing a little, so better than nothing. I will find out today when I see the audiologist. Thank you.

Hope your audiologist appointment showed improvement. Losing your hearing so greatly impacts one’s life.
My experience was that my hearing came back gradually up to approximately 3 weeks then stabilized. It was difficult to ascertain how much improvement I was getting on a daily basis. I could only tell because my ENT had my hearing checked by an office audiologist before each appointment. If my hearing and word recognition improved, I could get another injection through my eardrum. Injections stopped when my hearing didn’t show enough improvement although I continued on a 3 week regimen of tapered steroids. Ability to hear music (instead of just noise) came back a bit slower.

From what I was told (and what I read online), the sooner treatment is started, the better. Treatment within the first 3 days is optimal but the sooner, the better.
I’m wondering if sudden hearing loss is becoming more common. Sharing your experience helps create awareness so others will know what to do if this happens to them since getting prompt treatment from an ENT is important…
Keep posting how you are doing. Wishing you improvement.

Went quite well today thank you @unilateralhearing. A full hearing test on both left and right sides. I could feel yesterday evening and this morning a partial improvement. The audiologist compared my right side to my last test in July 2024, and is showing a 20db drop in the lower 250hz to 500 hz frequency range. There is still time for it to improve as I am only on my 4th day of treatment. As I was leaving the hospital today, I received a call from the ENT doctor, he wants to see me in 2 weeks for another test and to decide the next step.

Yeah Barry, I got distortion… But, that was much more prevalent when “ Meniers Disease”kicked in, approximately 2 or 3 years after, “Bilateral SSNHL”… Who said life was easy, most probably, my worst ever affliction? MD, depending on the severity, can be an absolute living nightmare, the good thing is it usually burns itself out, around year 7 or 8, but not always! It destroys your Vestibular, taking most of your residual hearing in the process… I had cluster attacks, that went on for days, Tinnitus went completely off the scale, extreme vertigo, extreme visual distortion, nausea (although, I was never actually physically sick) extreme hearing distortion, to a point, I couldn’t understand anyone for days on end, usually followed by exhaustion, and chronic fatigue, I could easily sleep for a day after an attack… For me, back then, there was no point in putting my aids in, the distortion was so bad! Nowadays, I am mostly fine, my hearing is shot through, but I get bye, my balance is pretty bad though, especially in low light/dark environments…I do regard myself as most fortunate to have survived MD, there were occasions that I felt, I can’t live with this anymore, you were always on edge, awaiting the next cluster attacks, anxiety levels would always be high, you couldn’t work, whom would employ you? You couldn’t plan anything, like holidays, or meeting up with friends, you were always ill or so it seemed… I don’t get any distortion now. Cheers Kev

No, my wife never recovered hearing in that ear. Some muffled sound, but sadly no. Thankfully, her other ear is ok. Well, that is when she wants to hear me.

Glad your appointment showed improvement. It’s hard to measure day to day so the hearing testing is important.
I could only hear distorted noise through headphones when I tried to play piano during the beginning of my treatment. Not till the second week was I able to hear more than noise.

Hi @ronshere. I was actually thinking the same. There was visually no sign of infection, my GP did also ask pertinent questions. In hindsight I suppose it would have been easy enough to prescribe antibiotics with the Prednisolone. Although the ear was examined again yesterday by the audiologist, again no sign of infection. I have a appointment to be seen by ENT as soon as the steroid treatment is complete.

If the infection is viral, a retro-viral might help, but an antibiotic won’t do anything but wipe out your gut flora.

WH

Years ago I lost hearing in my left ear. Otolaryngologist did various test and told me it was Meniere’s disease. Hearing came back after a couple of days on its own. It happened a couple of times since. I reduced salt consumption, but I had no typical symptoms for Meniere’s anyway.

This first happened to me around 2010 when I was in my late 40s. Hearing returned after a day or so and It happened several times in the months after. I went to 2 different ENTs in the Minneapolis area and none of them knew what to do. One even decided I had Meneirs disease. He was wrong. So, I ended up losing high end response in both ears and today my loss is moderate.I started wearing HAs around 2016. My research and doctor visits at the time dug up no useful information and I got no treatment. Wish I knew about the steroids.

Yes @arydant. I knew it was an emergency situation, information I had gleaned from this excellent forum and it’s members, over the last 7 years. And hats off to my Doctor (GP), no messing, she contacted ENT straight away, they advised a high dose of steroids. Still unsure as to what the the final result will be, but I can certainly hear a little more than I could 6 days ago.

Yes @BarryH, I had similar symptoms (maybe different cause) in 2001, when I was aged 60 (I live in Melbourne, Australia). I previously had significant hearing loss, due to very noisy work-places when I was young.

One morning I woke with no hearing in L ear. Otherwise I had no symptoms except later that day I experienced a bit of sneezing and eye watering – presumably allergy related (it was Spring and I have always experienced pollen-related allergies).
My wife being a nurse, we found a specialist, an Asst. Professor (i.e. a highly qualified man). He carried out what my wife recognised as detailed tests for any brain related conditions, ordered scans, etc. All tests were negative, and his final best guess was that I had experienced some sort of inner ear viral infection - the sneezing may or may not have been related.
At that time I could not detect a tuning fork near my L ear. A fortnight later I could hear a little of a tuning fork near my L ear, though the tone was quite distorted. In time I recovered maybe 50% of previous L ear hearing.

Yes @cwyndham. It makes it all the worse for a person to leave it for a week or so, hoping their hearing will come back. Then to discover later, steps could have been taken to at least possibly restore some hearing. It’s an emergency situation and time is of the essence.