How Is Sshl Treated
Early treatment may increase your chances for a full recovery. But, your doctor will try to find the cause of your hearing loss before starting treatment.
Steroids are the most common treatment. They can reduce inflammation and swelling. This is especially helpful in people who have diseases of the immune system, such as Cogan syndrome. Your doctor may also prescribe antibiotics if an infection is the cause of your SSHL.
In some cases, a doctor can surgically insert a cochlear implant into your ear. The implant doesnt completely restore hearing, but it can amplify sounds to a more normal level.
Living With Hearing Loss
If you have hearing loss, you may find that it takes extra effort and energy to talk with others. Hearing may be especially difficult in settings where there are many people talking or there is a lot of background noise. The increased effort it takes to be with other people may cause stress and fatigue. You may begin to avoid social activities, feel less independent, and worry about your safety.
Hearing devices you may want to use include:
- Hearing aids.Hearing aids make all sounds louder , including your own voice. Common background noises, such as rustling newspapers, magazines, and office papers, may be distracting. When you first get hearing aids, it may take you several weeks to months to get used to this.
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When To Get Medical Help
A GP can help if you think you’re losing your hearing.
- if you or your child suddenly lose hearing , call a GP or NHS 111 as soon as possible
- if you think your or your child’s hearing is getting gradually worse, make an appointment to see a GP
- if you’re concerned about a friend’s or family member’s hearing, encourage them to see a GP
The GP will ask about your symptoms and look inside your ears using a small handheld torch with a magnifying lens. They can also do some simple checks of your hearing.
If needed, they can refer you to a specialist for more hearing tests.
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Is Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss An Emergency
Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss in one ear or sudden deafness noticed overnight or over a few days is a medical emergency. In Audiological or medical terms, if the loss of hearing is in the range of 30 dB and above in 3 connected or consecutive frequencies, it is most probably a case of sudden deafness.
People do not rush to the Doctor as the first option is to wait for some time expecting it to clear by itself or try self-treatment. People do not consider it as an emergency and try cures for allergies, check for earwax and also some home remedies like gargling with warm water etc before they consult an ENT doctor. Sudden deafness is mostly permanent in nature, however, early treatment may restore some of the loss. A window of 14 days is considered crucial for effective treatment, the chances of recovery decrease if the treatment starts after 2 weeks.
Reversing Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Once damaged, your auditory nerve and cilia cannot be repaired. But, depending on the severity of the damage, sensorineural hearing loss has been successfully treated with hearing aids or cochlear implants. There is, however, the possibility that your hearing loss isnt reversible.
Cochlear implants
A cochlear implant bypasses the injured or damaged portion of the auditory system and directly stimulates your auditory nerve. With a cochlear implant, many people even those with severe sensorineural hearing loss have been able to reverse hearing loss partially.
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Science In Service Of Changing Care
One of the most frustrating experiences for ear specialists is seeing patients with SSNHL who suffered delay in diagnosis and missed the window of opportunity for oral steroid treatment. These patients are often desperate to try any measure that might regain some of their lost hearing. Intratympanic steroid treatment might be an answer for some of them. Despite the absence of denitive studies about its benet and risk, intratympanic steroid delivery is rapidly spreading as a treatment approach for inner ear diseases. Soon, it will become entrenched, even though scientic evidence of its efcacy is, at this point, still lacking.
Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss Causes
The main cause of SSHL is not specific. There are several causes for SSHL which include:
1. Acoustic Neuroma
Acoustic neuroma is also known as vestibulocochlear nerve, vestibular schwannomas, or neurilemmoma. The acoustic neuroma helps in connecting the brain to the inner ear.
There are two different parts of acoustic neuroma. One part forwards the sound and the other one sends balance information from the inner ear to the brain.
Symptoms of the acoustic neuroma are ringing in the ear called tinnitus, sudden loss of hearing, and fullness of ear. Surgical treatment is the only way to get rid of it if the tumor is large.
2. Head Injury or Trauma
Head injury is a kind of injury to your brain skull or scalp. The severe head injury called trauma. Following are two types of head injury:
- Closed head injury in which the skull of the sufferer does not break.
- Open head injury in which the skull of sufferer breaks and causes damage to the brain.
Symptoms of head injury might be nausea, headache, spinning sensation, vomiting, and many more. The treatment done by the doctor will be based on your head injury.
3. Meniers Disease
Menieres disease occurs in the inner ear. It generally affects one ear. It causes pain and pressure in the ear due to excess fluid. The other cause can be dizziness, vertigo, and tinnitus.
The symptoms can be hearing loss in the affected ear, headaches, nausea, and many more. It can be treated by medicines, physical therapies, surgery, and hearing aids.
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Causes Of Hearing Loss
Hearing loss can have many different causes. For example:
- sudden hearing loss in 1 ear may be due to earwax, an ear infection, a perforated eardrum or Ménière’s disease
- sudden hearing loss in both ears may be due to damage from a very loud noise, or taking certain medicines that can affect hearing
- gradual hearing loss in 1 ear may be due to something inside the ear, such as fluid , a bony growth or a build-up of skin cells
- gradual hearing loss in both ears is usually caused by ageing or exposure to loud noises over many years
This may give you an idea of the reason for hearing loss but make sure you see a GP to get a proper diagnosis. It might not always be possible to identify an obvious cause.
How To Treat Hearing Loss In One Ear
Treating unilateral hearing loss heavily depends on the cause. If your hearing loss is too much to bear, it may be irreversible and your doctor will have to recommend a hearing aid. You could also get surgery to repair the ear or remove a tumor if you have one, use antibiotics to treat an infection, use steroids to reduce inflammation and swelling or stop using the medication that causes the hearing loss. Again, it depends on the cause of your condition.
If you are experiencing hearing loss because of wax buildup, all that is needed is the earwax to be gently removed. Use things like hydrogen peroxide, a few drops of mineral oil, baby oil or earwax removal products. After a few days and you are still experiencing hearing loss, you may need to seek out help from your doctor as continuous use of these products can cause even more damage to your ears.
Experiencing hearing loss because of a foreign object in your ear is simple to take care of as well. Make sure that you do not attempt to remove the object on your own. As a rule of thumb never insert cotton swabs or tweezers into your ear to get rid of foreign objects in the ear. These materials can cause further damage to your ear. On rare occasions, your temporary hearing loss will go away on its own without the help of any treatment methods.
Dizziness, facial weakness, imbalance or neurological symptoms are good cause to see a doctor as soon as possible.
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How Common Is Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss In One Ear
Sudden deafness is not as common as other types of hearing loss. Between one to six persons per 5000 suffer from this problem. The August issue of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery record the figure as 66,000 cases per year in the United States. In fact, the figure could be higher as some cases often go unrecorded.
Treating Sudden Hearing Loss: Can You Get Your Hearing Back
Although treatments for sudden hearing loss are still fairly limited, they are important: 85% of those who receive prompt medical attention regain some or all of their hearing. This is mostly good news for people hoping to regain their hearing in one ear.
The drugs used to to treat sudden hearing loss are steroids, which suppress inflammation. Specifically, corticosteroids are the most common treatment for SSNHL. They work by helping the body fight illness, decreasing swelling and reducing inflammation. Usually administered in pill form, the steroids also can be given through an injection behind the eardrum.
With prompt treatment, you have a good chance of regaining some or all of your lost hearing.
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Can You Suddenly Go Deaf In One Ear
The answer is yes, however it affects a very small percentage of people. Sudden Sensorineural hearing loss is mostly unilateral hearing loss or is hearing loss in one ear. Less than 10% of the recorded cases are of hearing loss in both ears, some studies claim that sudden bilateral hearing loss cases are in the range of 1-2%.
Diagnosing Sudden Hearing Loss
A diagnosis for sudden hearing loss is determined through process of elimination. Various examination procedures are all performed to obtain the best results. For example, an ENT doctor can use otoscopy to discover obstructions or injuries in the ear canal. By using hearing tests , a doctor can determine the extent and localization of your hearing loss, and classify your sudden hearing loss into high, mid, or low frequency. A pure-tone audiogram is performed during the diagnostic process to determine if you have pan cochlear sensorineural hearing loss.
How hearing aids can help in the event of sudden hearing lossWearing hearing aids will alleviate the effects of sudden hearing loss if your hearing loss persists over time. Ideally, the appropriate medication should be administered within 24 hours after you notice the symptoms. If treatment does not follow within this period, and your hearing loss becomes chronic, we recommend the use of hearing aids to provide relief. If your sudden hearing loss occurs with tinnitus, the noiser function in most hearing aids can help treat both conditions.
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Children And Hearing Loss
Hearing loss is harmful to people of all ages, but for children, it has special implications. Because babies and young children need to hear in order to develop spoken language, good hearing is the foundation for spoken communication, social development and educational success.
Most hospitals screen every newborn for potential hearing loss. Those infants identified by the screening are referred for further testing to confirm the presence of hearing loss and gather more information so decisions can be made regarding intervention. If your child has a hearing loss, you are encouraged to talk with a pediatric audiologist. Pediatric audiology is a specialized field of professionals dedicated to the specific needs of babies and children with hearing loss.
Hearing loss in children can be caused by congenital factors, head trauma, medications, childhood illnesses, persistent middle ear infections, deformities of the ear canal or malfunctioning eardrums. Treatment of childhood hearing loss depends largely on the underlying cause. Identification of hearing loss and intervention prior to 6 months of age has been shown to dramatically improve outcomes for kids.
Diagnosis Of Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss
There are various ways to diagnose SSHL which include:
1. Otoscopy
In otoscopy, the external canal of the ear canal is examined. The instrument which is used in otoscopy is otoscope.
This device helps doctors to see directly into the ear canal. It uses the light to see clearly into the ear. It examines the external ear, middle ear, and eardrum.
2. Tympanometry
Tympanometry is a process of examining the condition of the middle ear and movement of the eardrum. It also checks the variations of air pressure in the external canal.
The test helps in recognizing the conductive hearing loss. The result of the tympanometer is called a tympanogram.
3. Audiometry
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The Cause Of Sudden Hearing Loss Is Often Unknown
SSNHL differs from other types of hearing loss in a couple of important ways. Aside from its rapid onset, it is often idiopathic, meaning the cause is usually unknown. A cause can be identified in only 10 to 15 percent of diagnosed cases.
Some possible known risk factors and causes include:
- Bacterial infection
- Tumors
- Some drugs can cause hearing loss as a side effect, known as ototoxic medications, especially if taken in high doses
- Neurologic diseases or disorders
- Head injury or trauma
- Autoimmune diseases
- Circulation issues
How Is Sudden Deafness Diagnosed
If you have sudden deafness symptoms, your doctor should rule out conductive hearing losshearing loss due to an obstruction in the ear, such as fluid or ear wax. For sudden deafness without an obvious, identifiable cause upon examination, your doctor should perform a test called pure tone audiometry within a few days of onset of symptoms to identify any sensorineural hearing loss.
With pure tone audiometry, your doctor can measure how loud different frequencies, or pitches, of sounds need to be before you can hear them. One sign of SSHL could be the loss of at least 30 in three connected frequencies within 72 hours. This drop would, for example, make conversational speech sound like a whisper. Patients may have more subtle, sudden changes in their hearing and may be diagnosed with other tests.
If you are diagnosed with sudden deafness, your doctor will probably order additional tests to try to determine an underlying cause for your SSHL. These tests may include blood tests, imaging , and balance tests.
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What Are The Symptoms Of Sudden Deafness
Majority of the people experience a pop in the ear before the hearing deteriorates. People experience a variety of symptoms like
- Sudden muffled hearing in one ear
- Fullness or stuffed or clogged ears
- Dizziness
- Loss of sensation in the pinna of the ear
- Ear balance problems or vertigo
- Tinnitus or ringing in the ears
- Difficulty in hearing high- pitched sounds or High frequency hearing loss
As A Hearing Professional What Should I Do If I Suspect A Case Of Ssnhl
Prompt action based on audiological results is the key to assisting a client with SSNHL. As a clinician, it is imperative to rule out any conductive reason for a reduction in hearing by performing the following checks and tests:
- A thorough inspection of the ear, ear canal, tympanic membrane, ideally captured with video otoscopy.
- Tympanometry to establish compliance of the middle ear.
- Pure Tone Audiometry, with Air Conduction and Bone Conduction thresholds
Once a case of SSNHL has been identified, it should be treated as a medical emergency. The clinician should help the client to access the correct medical treatment as quickly as possible.
The audiological data gathered from the otoscopy, tympanometry and pure tone audiometry, can be used to collate a medical referral letter. The client can then take this letter to A& E or their GP, depending on the time of day and geographical proximity.
Example of a referral letter for medical intervention for SSNHL:
After treatment, another audiogram should be performed to determine the amount of hearing remaining. An MRI can help clinicians check for a possible underlying cause of SSNHL, such as a neurological condition or acoustic neuroma.
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How Long Does Sudden Deafness Last
One of the important factors in early recovery from sudden deafness is the time of starting the treatment. Right diagnosis and treatment improve the chances of recovery however, it also depends on the cause. One should visit a doctor immediately if one experiences the above symptoms and avoid self-treatment or unnecessary delay. People treated within the first 14 days showed a higher recovery rate. The recommended treatment is the use of corticosteroids. People suffering from Mild to Moderate sudden deafness have a 60% chance of recovery. Treatment started after 2 weeks has shown very poor chances of recovery.
Joy Victory Managing Editor Healthy Hearing
Joy Victory has extensive experience editing consumer health information. Her training in particular has focused on how to best communicate evidence-based medical guidelines and clinical trial results to the public. She strives to make health content accurate, accessible and engaging to the public.Read more about Joy.
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