Hearing loss has a track record for advancing slowly. This can make the symptoms easy to miss. (After all, you’re simply turning up the volume on your TV now and then, it’s nothing to worry about, right?) In some cases that’s true but often, it isn’t. Sometimes, hearing loss can occur all of a sudden without any early symptoms.
When our health abruptly changes, it tends to get our attention (one could even describe the feeling as “alarm”). For example, if your hair falls out a little bit at a time, it’s no big deal, you’re just going bald! But if all of your hair fell out overnight, you would likely feel obliged to schedule a doctor’s appointment as soon as you can (and rightfully so).
The same goes for sudden hearing loss. There are some very good reasons why acting fast is a good plan!
What is sudden hearing loss?
Long-term hearing loss is more common than sudden hearing loss or SSHL for short. But it’s not exactly uncommon for people to experience sudden hearing loss. Approximately 1 in 5000 individuals per year are afflicted by SSHL.
Here are some symptoms of sudden hearing loss:
- Some people might also experience a feeling of fullness in the ear. Or there might be a ringing or buzzing in some cases.
- Some individuals notice a loud “pop” before their hearing starts to disappear. But that only happens sometimes. It’s possible to experience SSHL without hearing this pop.
- Sudden hearing loss will impact just one ear in 9 of 10 cases. But it is possible for both ears to be impacted by SSHL.
- The loss of 30dB or greater with regards to your hearing. The outside world sounds 30dB quieter than when you had healthy hearing. You’ll certainly notice the difference, but you will need our help to measure it.
- Sudden deafness occurs very quickly as the name indicates. This usually means that sudden hearing loss occurs over a matter of hours or days. In most circumstances, the individual will wake up and their hearing will be suddenly impaired. Or, perhaps they’re unable to hear what the other person is saying on the other end of a phone call suddenly.
So, is sudden hearing loss permanent? Well, about half of everybody who experiences SSHL will recover within a couple of weeks. But rapid treatment is a major key to success. So you will need to come see us for treatment right away. You should schedule an appointment within 72 hours of the start of your symptoms.
The best thing you can do, in most instances, is to treat SSHL as a medical emergency. Your risk of sudden hearing loss becoming permanent increases the longer you wait.
So… what causes sudden hearing loss?
Here are a few of the biggest causes of sudden hearing loss:
- Reaction to pain medication: Your risk of developing sudden hearing loss is increased by overuse of opioids.
- Genetic predisposition: Genetic predisposition can sometimes be responsible for sudden hearing loss.
- Autoimmune disease: Your immune system can, in some instances, start to view your inner ear as a threat. This kind of autoimmune disease can easily lead to SSHL.
- Head trauma: A traumatic brain injury can be disruptive to the communication between your ears and your brain.
- Illnesses: There are numerous health conditions that, for significantly different reasons, can cause SSHL, such as multiple sclerosis, meningitis, measles, and mumps. This is a great reason to get immunized against diseases that have a vaccine.
- Problems with your blood flow: Things like obstructed cochlear arteries and high platelet counts are included in this category.
- A reaction to drugs: Common drugs 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.
- Repeated exposure to loud sound, like music: For most individuals, loud sound will cause a slow decline in hearing. But there may be some circumstances where that hearing loss will occur abruptly.
Most of the time, we will be better able to help you formulate an effective treatment if we can figure out what type of sudden hearing loss you have. But sometimes it doesn’t work like that. Many kinds of SSHL are addressed similarly, so determining the exact cause isn’t always required for successful treatment.
If you experience sudden hearing loss – what should you do?
So what action should you take if you wake up one morning and find that your hearing is gone? There are a couple of things that you should do as soon as possible. Don’t just try to wait it out. That’s a bad idea! Instead, you should find treatment within 72 hours. It’s best to schedule an appointment with us as soon as possible. We’ll be able to help you determine what went wrong and help you find the best course of treatment.
We will most likely undertake an audiogram in our office to find out your degree of hearing loss (this is the examination where we have you wear headphones and raise your hand when you hear a beep, it’s completely non-invasive). We will also make sure you don’t have any obstructions or a possible conductive cause for your hearing loss.
For most individuals, the first course of treatment will most likely include steroids. For some people, these steroids could be injected directly into the ear. In other situations, oral medication may be enough. SSHL of numerous root causes (or no known cause) can be successfully treated with steroids. You might need to use a medication to suppress your immune response if your SSHL is triggered by an autoimmune disease.
If you or somebody you know has suddenly lost the ability to hear, contact us right away for an assessment..