AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
Since joining the forum four years ago, I’m usually a regular visitor and poster, visiting almost every day. That changed a couple weeks ago – this is the first time I’ve logged in since I woke up at 2:30am on March 24 with a splitting headache…my eyes felt extremely sensitive to light, I was nauseous - real migraine style stuff. I popped an Ibuprofen and went downstairs to lay on the couch so I wouldn’t disturb my wife to ride it out, but around 6:30am, I started to notice that my left ear started to feel “full” and muffled. By 7:30am, I was almost completely deaf in my left ear.
Over the course of the next two days, I had maddening experiences with an Urgent Care and my own doctor’s office during which the staff at each facility failed to grasp the seriousness and severity of the situation. The Urgent Care was content to send me home with the recommendation to take some Sudafed and follow up if things didn’t improve. My own doctor sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics, claiming that my right ear was infected (turned out later, it wasn't) – when I expressed disbelief and asked how it was possible that I lost hearing in my left ear if the right is infected, she said “Yes, that is strange. Once you’ve finished the antibiotics, if it hasn’t improved, we’ll refer you to an ENT.”
At that point I started researching my own symptoms, and every resource on Dr Google was pointing to the same conclusion: sudden hearing loss in one ear over a very short time frame is a medical emergency. Off to the emergency room I went on Saturday, March 27. It’s a decision that may very well have saved some ability to hear using my left ear. The ER was able to consult with an on-call ENT, and recognize the seriousness of the condition – they started me on high dose oral steroids, and made an emergency referral to an ENT.
An audiogram at the ENT’s office on March 29 diagnosed me with sudden, profound hearing loss across all frequencies in my left ear. Technically, I could still “hear”…as long as things were louder than 80 decibels on very low frequencies and over 110 decibels on higher frequencies, I could make out some vibrations. The condition is known as Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSNHL). It strikes about 5000 people a year in the US, but no one really knows what causes it. Best guess is that it’s precipitated by a viral infection. Prognosis for hearing recovery is generally 50/50, with odds worse for those who suffer profound loss, better for those who receive treatment within a week. For those who do recover, the majority of hearing recovery occurs within the first 3 weeks, with minor gains possible in the coming 3 months. Full recovery occurs in only 5-10% of cases.
Before I fast forward to today, I have to say that last week was quite literally the most difficult week of my life. Complete hearing loss in one ear is a mixed blessing – while I was extremely grateful to still have the use of one ear, complete loss of the other ear created surprising and overwhelming challenges beyond just making it more difficult to hear. There’s absolutely no way to judge what direction sound is coming from – virtually everything sounds like it’s coming from the right, in my case. Our brains can do amazing things to compensate for lost senses, but unless you can physically see the source of the sound, this isn’t something our brain can fix without stereo hearing. Then comes the roaring tinnitus – our brains often compensate for hearing loss with incessant roaring or ringing in the ears. In my case, the tinnitus rapidly increased in volume so much in my left ear that it was louder than the true hearing in my right, making concentration on any tasks almost impossible, not to mention further impairing my ability to hear people talk. And sleep vaporized. It’s impossible to sleep with a jet engine roar in your left ear that never shuts off. But besides the obvious quality of life issues presented by this sudden loss of hearing, I was also deeply concerned about my livelihood – I’m a professional pilot, and complete loss of hearing in one ear is disqualifying. This situation was threatening my career and my entire family’s quality of life going forward.
To make a long story longer, I’ve since been to the ENT twice for injection of high dose steroids directly into my inner ear. I’m incredibly grateful to be one of the lucky ones – since the injections started, I’ve seen an agonizingly slow, but steady improvement in my left ear. I was ecstatic last Wednesday when I could hear a faint, vague rustle when I rubbed my hand across my left ear. On Easter, if someone snapped their fingers loudly enough directly behind my head, I could not only start to hear it in my left ear, but I could accurately tell which side of my head it was on about 85% of the time. On Monday I cried tears of joy when I could barely make out an electronic, tinny sounding “voice” when my wife talked at a normal volume within a foot of my left ear.
On Wednesday and Thursday, I finally tried metal detecting again, and used earbuds – I quickly found that not only was the volume in my left ear still greatly reduced, but it was also tremendously distorted and all the tones in my left ear were several steps higher in frequency than they should be, a condition called “diplacusis”. Still, I was a tremendous relief to find that I could still get out and truly enjoy myself while detecting. I even came home with a silver quarter!
As of today, my condition has improved tremendously compared to this time last week, but I still have a long way to go. I can hear my cell phone now if I hold it directly to my left ear at a reasonable volume – the volume is greatly diminished, but I can make out the words. The tinnitus has reduced to a more reasonable level – close to what I’ve always had in each ear – and I’ve finally been able to sleep again for the last couple of nights. I’m reasonably certain that I’ve recovered enough hearing that a hearing aid will be able to help, and my flying career is no longer in immediate danger. I’m absolutely thrilled and grateful that I’ve had this much progress, and I’m optimistic that I might be one of the lucky ones who may approach near complete recovery. My next ENT appointment is on April 15 – another steroid injection, but also my first full audiogram since onset, so I’ll be able to put firm numbers on my overall hearing recovery.
I wanted to write all this down for a few reasons. First, I wanted my friends here at FMDF to know why I’ve been MIA for a little while. Second, it’s actually therapeutic for me to talk/write about it a bit – and keeps some of the pressure off of my wife and family, who have borne the bulk of my stress and have been rock solid bastions of support.
But most importantly, I wanted to raise a little awareness of this condition. If you experience sudden hearing loss in one or both ears, DO NOT wait, and DO NOT go to an urgent care or even your primary care physician. GO STRAIGHT TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM. The National Institute of Health, the Hearing Loss Association of America, the Cleveland Clinic, most ENTs - virtually all major medical institutions and ear specialists familiar with the condition consider SSNHL a medical emergency. Many general practice doctors are not familiar with the condition, and will misdiagnose the condition as allergies, standard infection, etc. But the window of opportunity for treatment is small – if not appropriately treated within the first week, the chances of any hearing recovery is very low. Unfortunately, there are many people who received the proper diagnosis too late…if I had listened to the first two medical professionals I visited, I would have been one of them.
Over the course of the next two days, I had maddening experiences with an Urgent Care and my own doctor’s office during which the staff at each facility failed to grasp the seriousness and severity of the situation. The Urgent Care was content to send me home with the recommendation to take some Sudafed and follow up if things didn’t improve. My own doctor sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics, claiming that my right ear was infected (turned out later, it wasn't) – when I expressed disbelief and asked how it was possible that I lost hearing in my left ear if the right is infected, she said “Yes, that is strange. Once you’ve finished the antibiotics, if it hasn’t improved, we’ll refer you to an ENT.”
At that point I started researching my own symptoms, and every resource on Dr Google was pointing to the same conclusion: sudden hearing loss in one ear over a very short time frame is a medical emergency. Off to the emergency room I went on Saturday, March 27. It’s a decision that may very well have saved some ability to hear using my left ear. The ER was able to consult with an on-call ENT, and recognize the seriousness of the condition – they started me on high dose oral steroids, and made an emergency referral to an ENT.
An audiogram at the ENT’s office on March 29 diagnosed me with sudden, profound hearing loss across all frequencies in my left ear. Technically, I could still “hear”…as long as things were louder than 80 decibels on very low frequencies and over 110 decibels on higher frequencies, I could make out some vibrations. The condition is known as Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSNHL). It strikes about 5000 people a year in the US, but no one really knows what causes it. Best guess is that it’s precipitated by a viral infection. Prognosis for hearing recovery is generally 50/50, with odds worse for those who suffer profound loss, better for those who receive treatment within a week. For those who do recover, the majority of hearing recovery occurs within the first 3 weeks, with minor gains possible in the coming 3 months. Full recovery occurs in only 5-10% of cases.
Before I fast forward to today, I have to say that last week was quite literally the most difficult week of my life. Complete hearing loss in one ear is a mixed blessing – while I was extremely grateful to still have the use of one ear, complete loss of the other ear created surprising and overwhelming challenges beyond just making it more difficult to hear. There’s absolutely no way to judge what direction sound is coming from – virtually everything sounds like it’s coming from the right, in my case. Our brains can do amazing things to compensate for lost senses, but unless you can physically see the source of the sound, this isn’t something our brain can fix without stereo hearing. Then comes the roaring tinnitus – our brains often compensate for hearing loss with incessant roaring or ringing in the ears. In my case, the tinnitus rapidly increased in volume so much in my left ear that it was louder than the true hearing in my right, making concentration on any tasks almost impossible, not to mention further impairing my ability to hear people talk. And sleep vaporized. It’s impossible to sleep with a jet engine roar in your left ear that never shuts off. But besides the obvious quality of life issues presented by this sudden loss of hearing, I was also deeply concerned about my livelihood – I’m a professional pilot, and complete loss of hearing in one ear is disqualifying. This situation was threatening my career and my entire family’s quality of life going forward.
To make a long story longer, I’ve since been to the ENT twice for injection of high dose steroids directly into my inner ear. I’m incredibly grateful to be one of the lucky ones – since the injections started, I’ve seen an agonizingly slow, but steady improvement in my left ear. I was ecstatic last Wednesday when I could hear a faint, vague rustle when I rubbed my hand across my left ear. On Easter, if someone snapped their fingers loudly enough directly behind my head, I could not only start to hear it in my left ear, but I could accurately tell which side of my head it was on about 85% of the time. On Monday I cried tears of joy when I could barely make out an electronic, tinny sounding “voice” when my wife talked at a normal volume within a foot of my left ear.
On Wednesday and Thursday, I finally tried metal detecting again, and used earbuds – I quickly found that not only was the volume in my left ear still greatly reduced, but it was also tremendously distorted and all the tones in my left ear were several steps higher in frequency than they should be, a condition called “diplacusis”. Still, I was a tremendous relief to find that I could still get out and truly enjoy myself while detecting. I even came home with a silver quarter!
As of today, my condition has improved tremendously compared to this time last week, but I still have a long way to go. I can hear my cell phone now if I hold it directly to my left ear at a reasonable volume – the volume is greatly diminished, but I can make out the words. The tinnitus has reduced to a more reasonable level – close to what I’ve always had in each ear – and I’ve finally been able to sleep again for the last couple of nights. I’m reasonably certain that I’ve recovered enough hearing that a hearing aid will be able to help, and my flying career is no longer in immediate danger. I’m absolutely thrilled and grateful that I’ve had this much progress, and I’m optimistic that I might be one of the lucky ones who may approach near complete recovery. My next ENT appointment is on April 15 – another steroid injection, but also my first full audiogram since onset, so I’ll be able to put firm numbers on my overall hearing recovery.
I wanted to write all this down for a few reasons. First, I wanted my friends here at FMDF to know why I’ve been MIA for a little while. Second, it’s actually therapeutic for me to talk/write about it a bit – and keeps some of the pressure off of my wife and family, who have borne the bulk of my stress and have been rock solid bastions of support.
But most importantly, I wanted to raise a little awareness of this condition. If you experience sudden hearing loss in one or both ears, DO NOT wait, and DO NOT go to an urgent care or even your primary care physician. GO STRAIGHT TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM. The National Institute of Health, the Hearing Loss Association of America, the Cleveland Clinic, most ENTs - virtually all major medical institutions and ear specialists familiar with the condition consider SSNHL a medical emergency. Many general practice doctors are not familiar with the condition, and will misdiagnose the condition as allergies, standard infection, etc. But the window of opportunity for treatment is small – if not appropriately treated within the first week, the chances of any hearing recovery is very low. Unfortunately, there are many people who received the proper diagnosis too late…if I had listened to the first two medical professionals I visited, I would have been one of them.