r/MonoHearing

So I went to the hospital yesterday because I had pretty bad vertigo out of nowhere. They checked me out, even did a brain CT, and told me everything looked fine and sent me home. At the time I felt a bit better so I just trusted it.

But now it’s been about a day and I’ve basically lost hearing in one ear. It’s really noticeable and honestly kind of scary. I’ve never had this happen before. Part of me is wondering if it could just be something simple like earwax, because I’ve had buildup issues before. I even tried checking with one of those little camera tools, Bebird, just to see if anything obvious is blocking it, but I couldn’t really tell much and didn’t want to mess with it.

Now I’m stuck feeling unsure. I don’t want to go back and seem like I’m overreacting after they already said nothing was wrong, but at the same time losing hearing doesn’t feel like something to ignore.

Would you go back to the hospital in this situation or wait it out a bit?

This community helped me through what I believe has been one of the hardest times of my life so far, so I want to give back by sharing my story.

I’m a 33-year-old male, fairly active and healthy. Last week, I woke up completely deaf in my left ear, with constant tinnitus. In the days prior to this, I only had a mild cold, so it could be related.

After a few hours passed and my hearing didn’t return, I started googling and found this sub. I read a lot of stories, and that same day—about 12 hours after onset—I took my first dose of methylprednisolone (80 mg).

I managed to see an ENT the next day, and he confirmed it is indeed SSNHL. He prescribed the proper steroid course (5 days at 80 mg, 5 days at 40 mg, 5 days at 20 mg, and 5 days at 10 mg) and asked how I knew that was the correct treatment, so I referred to this sub.

This past week has been a nightmare: trouble sleeping, extreme anxiety, and an overwhelming fear of what my life might be like from now on.

Today marks 7 days since onset, and my ear feels the same. I don’t know if I should push for intratympanic injections—the doctor didn’t seem to consider them until 14 days have passed without improvement from oral steroids.

My next appointment is in one week. I’ll update once I’m back.

Thank you for reading. I hope we all get better. Any comment is welcome—I haven’t felt this lonely in a long time.

Hi, those who have had this happen to them while pregnant, did you go on to have more babies? did it happen again? I’m so scared.

I was about 39 weeks pregnant when it happened to me, I am completely deaf in left ear. I also had GDM, wondering if maybe that could have something to do with it also, did you have Gestational diabetes?

Thankyou

If you have a CI for your single sided deafness, would love to know your experience. Been deaf in my right ear for 12 years. In those 12 years, I have used conventional HAs and a BAHA with little to no benefit (and now my BAHAs are broken and have expired warranties). I just visited the audiologist and my audiogram results showed severe-to-profound hearing loss with a WRS of 12%. She said the only option left is the CI for my right ear.

I am interested and motivated for the following reasons: improved sound localization, less mental exhaustion from trying to lip read and trying to filter out background noise in social settings, silencing tinnitus, and just plain being able to hear better.

Please tell me about your experiences with getting approved for the CI, surgery and recovery (including risks of surgery), and rehab (including the mapping appointments). I have young children (including one with fairly severe special needs) and so doing something like this would be a huge commitment for me. But since I will likely be taking care of my child for my whole life, I want to preserve as much of my function as possible.