Hearing loss has a track record for showing itself gradually. This can make the symptoms difficult to detect. (After all, you’re just turning up the volume on your television once in a while, it’s nothing to worry about, right?) In some cases that’s true but in some cases, it isn’t. In some situations, hearing loss can occur all of a sudden without any early symptoms.
It can be rather alarming when the condition of your health abruptly changes. For instance, if your hair falls out a little bit at a time, it’s not a big deal, you’re just going bald! But you would probably want to schedule an appointment with your doctor if you woke up one morning and all your hair had fallen out.
The same is true when you develop sudden hearing loss. When this happens, acting fast is important.
Sudden hearing loss – what is it?
Long-term hearing loss is more prevalent than sudden hearing loss or SSHL for short. But sudden hearing loss is not really rare, either. Every year, 1 in 5000 people experience SSHL.
The symptoms of sudden hearing loss usually include the following:
- Sudden hearing loss will impact just one ear in 9 of 10 cases. That said, it is possible for SSHL to impact both ears.
- 30dB or more of hearing loss. The outside world sounds 30dB quieter than when your hearing was healthy. You’ll certainly notice the difference, but you will need our assistance to measure it.
- Some individuals hear a loud “pop” before their hearing begins to disappear. But that only happens sometimes. It’s possible to experience SSHL without hearing this pop.
- As the name implies, sudden deafness normally occurs rapidly. This typically means that sudden hearing loss develops over a matter of hours or days. In fact, most people wake up in the morning questioning what’s wrong with their ears! Or, maybe they’re unable to hear the other person talking on the other end of a phone call suddenly.
- Some people might also have a feeling of fullness in the ear. Or there may be a ringing or buzzing in some cases.
So, is sudden hearing loss permanent? Actually, within a couple of weeks, hearing will come back for around 50% of individuals who experience SSHL. But prompt treatment is a significant key to success. This means you will want to undergo treatment as rapidly as you can. You should schedule an appointment within 72 hours of the start of your symptoms.
In most situations, it’s a good plan to treat sudden hearing loss as a medical emergency. Your risk of sudden hearing loss becoming irreversible increases the longer you wait.
What’s the cause of sudden hearing loss?
Some of the leading causes of sudden hearing loss include the following:
- Reaction to pain medication: Excessive use of opioid-related drugs and pain medication can increase your risk of developing sudden hearing loss.
- Illnesses: Diseases like mumps, measles, meningitis, and multiple sclerosis have all been known to cause SSHL, for significantly different reasons. This is a good reason to get immunized against diseases that have a vaccine.
- Head trauma: A traumatic brain injury can do much to disrupt the communication between your ears and your brain.
- Autoimmune disease: Your immune system can, in some situations, begin to view your inner ear as a threat. This type of autoimmune disease can definitely result in SSHL.
- Problems with your blood flow: Things like obstructed cochlear arteries and high platelet counts are included in this category.
- Genetic predisposition: Genetic predisposition can sometimes be responsible for sudden hearing loss.
- A reaction to drugs: Common medications such as aspirin are included in this list. Normally, this also includes cisplatin, quinine, or streptomycin and gentamicin (the last two of which are antibiotics.
- Being continuously exposed to loud music or other loud noise: Hearing will decline progressively due to repeated exposure to loud sound for most people. But there might be some situations where that hearing loss will occur suddenly.
For a portion of patients, knowing what kind of sudden hearing loss you have will help us formulate a more effective treatment plan. But sometimes it doesn’t work like that. Understanding the precise cause isn’t always necessary for effective treatment because lots of types of SSHL have similar treatment methods.
If you experience sudden hearing loss – what should you do?
So what action should you take if you wake up one day and discover that you can’t hear anything? There are some things that you need to do right away. Never just attempt to play the waiting game. That’s a bad plan! Rather, you should seek treatment within 72 hours. It’s best to make an appointment with us right away. We’ll be in the best position to help you figure out what’s wrong and how to treat it.
We will most likely undertake an audiogram in our office to identify your degree of hearing loss (this is the test where we have you wear headphones and raise your hand when you hear a beep, it’s entirely non-invasive). We will also rule out any obstructions or a possible conductive cause for your hearing loss.
For most patients, the first course of treatment will likely include steroids. For some individuals, these steroids could be injected directly into the ear. In other circumstances, oral medication may be enough. Steroids have been known to be quite effective in treating SSHL with a wide variety of root causes (or with no known root cause). For SSHL due to an autoimmune disease, you might need to take medication that inhibits your immune response.
If you or someone you know has suddenly lost the ability to hear, contact us right away for an assessment..