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Sudden SSHL After Infection

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It’s really not reasonable for someone with no history of hearing loss to insist on seeing an for every earache.

I rather suddenly developed severe pain in my left ear. I also quickly developed ringing, popping, and hearing loss.

yep, sounds like any old run of the mill headache to me.

In reply to @cvkemp

@cvkemp said:

I guess both of us need to be glad that you were not my Audi and I was not your patient, due to the fact that I do ask lots of questions, and I do demand lots of information. That is due to the fact that I was not really in the regular Navy most of my service career, but was part of WHCA. I learned just how politics works. And by the way I hate it but know how to use it when needed. While I hate being politically correct, I do know how to use it if needed too.

But yes I do know what you mean. When I was part of the regular we were taught to think for our selves and to do what was needed, and that worked to my advantage also while in WHCA. It took what I learned in the regular Navy and also what learned as part of WHCA to get through the rest of my work career. Also I will say that WHCA background opened lots of doors, in public life.

questions were never a problem as long as you didn’t act like a victim.

@Doc_Jake said:

questions were never a problem as long as you didn’t act like a victim.

That is great to hear. I have know for a long time what my hearing loss was caused by, and for the most part it was my fault as much as it was the fault of the service for not telling us what could happen to our hearing. And I have always been so grateful to the for everything that they have done for me. At the time I went into the service there was so many guys not coming home, so I knew what could happen, and was so grateful that I never came close to combat. I have always felt that someone was looking out for me. And I have always been grateful for what I have and what I had.

In reply to @The_Latinist

@thelatinst said:

By the way, to follow up on an earlier question, I am now taking 60 mg/day of prednisone for 10 days followed by a taper. It might not do anything, but I think it’s better to try it than always to wonder.

It might help, but it probably is too late. Should of been prescribed or steroid shots should of been administered much earlier.

In reply to @The_Latinist

@thelatinst said:

Thanks! I’m going to keep looking into aids; my primary focus, aside from speech clarity, is on keeping the sound as natural as possible. I have perfect pitch, so any frequency shifting would be very unsettling. Can frequency-shifting technologies be disabled in most hearing aids? Are there any with broader frequency coverage than others?

Most hearing aids do not have frequency-shifting so there is nothing to disable. That technology is rarely used and has met with limited success in the marketplace. It is good to have frequency shifting (transposition) available for the small group of candidates who do use it and benefit from it.

Please post an when you can but from what you have described, you should do well with a set of modern digital hearing aids. There will be a few weeks/months of adaptation time for your ears and brain of course.

@Doc_Jake said:

why? the problem has come and gone leaving you with the results.

Because published studies indicate that systemic steroids may help if taken within 30 days of onset (and I am still within 30 days of onset) and because my doctor considered it a reasonable course to take when I asked him about it. It may do nothing, sure, and I’m not getting my hopes up; but I tolerate prednisone well and even if the chance of it helping is small I think it’s worth trying. It’s not as though there is anything else with even a chance of restoring any of my hearing loss.

If it does nothing, I’m out 10 bucks and a little nausea—not much of a downside. If I regain even a small amount of the dynamic range I’ve lost in the high frequencies, on the other hand, I will consider that a tremendous upside.

I might have skipped the antibiotics, they may have damaged your hearing further being ototoxic including drugs in the ampicillin class. there are many drugs that are ototoxic.
you are lucky I couldn’t even get more than a medrol pack

Edited

Had I known that I had sensorineural rather than merely conductive hearing loss, I might have done that. But I have taken amoxicillin numerous times with no negative effects, and had no reason to believe it would affect me any more than it had on previous occasions.

If you were suffering from , then a course of prednisone was pretty muc te standard of care. I’m not sure why you consider yourself unlucky.

In reply to @The_Latinist

@The_Latinist said:

It’s really not reasonable for someone with no history of hearing loss to insist on seeing an ENT for every earache. How many millions of people come down with an ear infection annually? Should we really expect ever person who’s got an earache to get a full audiology exam with bone conduction testing?

Take a guess on how many patients working in an practice that I’ve seen who’s primary care doctor or the ER doctor diagnosed them with Otitis Media and they really had a ? The sad part is those who let it go on for 3 months before they were sent to us. ER docs are good if you have a GSW to the abdomen. They are wrong probably half the time with ears. We were sent a patient who was diagnosed with a Cholesteatoma in the ER, it was the end of a Q-tip stuck in his ear near the ear drum. We had a patient who was sent to us (I didn’t know they were coming from their same day) for a TM perforation. Looked in her ear, no hole (He’s looking at a small amount of scar tissue I can only assume). Told the patient no hole was present, explained that 80% of TM perforations heal on their own in a few weeks. She then asked how was that possible, she just came over from her doctor. Foot in mouth (Don’t want to make her doc look bad), in the back of my head I’m thinking her doctor is an idiot.

SteveAUD: is it your opinion that every person who presents with ear pain, congestion, red, enflamed ear drums, visible fluid in the middle ear, and hearing loss which started at the same time as the congestion should immediately be referred to an for evaluation for ? I don’t think there’s any doubt that I had an ear infection, and I’m really not sure if it’s reasonable to have expected a GP to suspect SSNHL with those symptoms. But maybe it is; I’ll be curious to hear your opinion.

I am, however, upset that the guy filling in for my vacationing was dismissive of my complaints of ongoing hearing loss at my follow-up appointment. I’m glad I didn’t follow his advice to try two (!) more courses of antibiotics before seeing an ENT (who, he said, would only “get medieval on [me]”) but made an appointment with an ENT as soon as my ear had cleared but my hearing had not improved. That said, it is clear that by that time there was nothing that could be done.

Edited

Know how many people we’ve seen who were told they had fluid in their ear and put on 3 rounds of antibiotics. Show up to our office stating their said their middle ear had fluid still and the only finding is a slightly retracted eardrum. Let me ask you this, were you put on ear drops?

No, why would I have been put on ear drops for otitis media? Also, would you care to answer my question? Do you think that people who present to their with the symptoms of acute otitis media and hearing loss that coincides with the onset of the other symptoms should routinely be referred immediately to an audiologist for evaluation for ?

My doctor prescribed something for what might be a bit of an ear fungus. I said, “Isn’t that ototoxic?”, dropping a word I recently learned here. He got a funny look and said something to the effect that we (docs) do that all the time and it doesn’t make sense. Anyway, he wrote a scrip for one that wasn’t.

I got to the pharmacy and the pharmacists asked me if I was sure I wanted it; it was $185. I didn’t and bought a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide instead. The ototoxic one would have been 10-bucks. Poor doctors get damned if they do/don’t over these drugs that most can tolerate.

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