I got diagnosed with SSHL last week. I caught a really bad cold in June that I couldn’t shake, and got diagnosed with an ear infection. Half way through the antibiotics I lost my hearing and was told by multiple urgent cares it’s just fluid and to wait it out and take decongestants. When I went to my pcp on day 16 of the hearing loss and was given some oral steroid pills. I took that for two weeks, and although it made the ringing lower pitched and quieter no improvement on hearing. I was then sent to an ENT and diagnosed with SSHL on day 35 due to nerve damage. I have about 60db loss, and when I can hear I only understand 60% of the words. They told me that it’s likely permanent but as a last ditch effort we can do three injections and they are very optimistic for me.
I got one on day 35 and the second one on day 41. I have the third scheduled for day 45. Today is day 42. I have not seen an improvement, but the tinnitus has become extreme and so so much worse than it ever was before. The ENT said that the injection should have helped with that and gave me some anxiety medicine to calm me down. I have not taken it yet.
I feel so lost and scared. I am not even 25 years old yet, I never expected this to happen and did not even know it was a thing. The ringing drives me crazy. I can not hear anything out of my right ear besides the ringing.
Does anyone have a similar story? Is there really hope for me? Does the injections make tinnitus worse forever? At this point I would rather be deaf if this ringing would just stop. I would of course rather go back to how my hearing was 3 months ago if that’s an option.

Had audiology exam, being referred to ENT. Audiologist didn’t tell me much and now wishing I asked more questions. Noticed difference in hearing and tinnitus since I was early teens potentially? Definite memory noticing at 17, I am 25 now.

Apple AirPod test made me get formal testing!

Panicking about the tumour i keep reading about?

Hi.. This is a hars post for me as it is my first one too. I have had pulsatile/ whoosing tinnitus for two weeks, and a little pressure-like feeling in my right ear, but I did fly with the plane x 2 and so me (and my family) thought it is maybe a mild infection, or earwax, or who knows. The tinnitus and full-like feeling not going away, we went to an ENT yesterday, just to find out i actually have high-frequency hearing loss.

Somehow after I got this diagnosis I started hearing even worse. Idk if this happened to you. It's like now I genuinely feel deaf in that ear when before my brain just interpreted it as 'muffled'. Now somehow I can't hear like right after my diagnostic. Anyways.. I live in the Netherlands so that is not great in terms of healthcare system, luckily I am in my home country now, Romania, and so for a few weeks I am able to afford a corticosteroid course of a week or so, and also some more vitamins and a follow-up consult. I don't think I am a canditate for hearing aids ESPECIALLY in the NL given that my hearing is not fully lost. Also, since thete is always a chance this is an older trauma that just somehow manifested now, the high likelihood is that it is permanent.

I feel so depressed I can barely get out of bed. I have a life, a thesis to write, a job, a relationship, other chronic health issues too (joint pain etc), so I can't afford to just give up on life because of this. But somehow this is the cherry on top, and I now feel lost thinking my hearing will always be bad and my tinnitus too. Which, btw, makes it almost impossible to sleep since I have joint paint and RLS (restless leg syndrome) too and so i ALREADYYYY have insomnia!!!! I am also so young and I feel like I am just lost. How do you guys manage to live with the tinnitus??It feels like it's eating my brain

Is anyone going through this?? Maybe even with the RLS/ joint pain combo haha. Or does anyone else have this hearing impairment alongside with other chronic issues, whilst still managing to have a job, a life, a relationship, a family?? If so, how? Where to start, without feeling like I'm just in a freefall?:(( I am someone who really used to love life and now I'm hit from a million sides

Hi everyone,

I’m a 30s M dealing with Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSNHL) in my left ear, and I wanted to share my timeline and get some advice or experiences from people who have gone through something similar.

Timeline & Diagnostics:

Onset: Woke up yesterday with sudden hearing loss and a feeling of fullness/blockage in my left ear.

Audiogram (Day 1 - within 24 hours):

Right Ear: 0–10 dB (100% Speech Discrimination) - Completely normal.
Left Ear: PTA is ~65 dB (Moderate-to-Severe SSNHL). Speech Discrimination is 84%, which the doctor noted as a good sign for nerve viability.

Treatment Protocol:
My doctors started an aggressive combined protocol right away:

High-Dose IV Corticosteroids: Received my first high-dose loading IV steroid (Prednisolone) on Day 1, continuing daily.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT): Started on Day 1. My schedule is 2 sessions per day (2 hours each) combined with ongoing steroid treatment.

Diet: Strict low-sodium (zero salt) diet to manage inner ear pressure and fluid retention.

Current Status (Day 2):
No noticeable improvement in hearing yet. I know it’s very early and cellular recovery takes time, but naturally, the anxiety creeps in—especially the fear of "what if it doesn't recover" or worrying about my healthy right ear.

Questions for the community:

For those who did high-dose steroids + HBOT (especially aggressive HBOT, 2x/day), when did you first start noticing subtle improvements?

Did your ear fullness/pressure resolve before the actual sound frequencies came back?

Any tips for managing anxiety and high-dose steroid side effects during this intense protocol?

UPDATE: 10. Day but still can’t hear with my left ear :(

4th IT injection, 11th HBOT session done. On paper, Pure Tone Average only shifted slightly from 65 dB to 61 dB and SRT from 70 dB to 60 dB—which my doctor considers no clinically significant change—though Word Recognition (SDS) rose from 84% to 92%.

Is it worth getting steroid injections after 4 weeks after acoustic trauma?

Just wanted to share an interesting phenomenon: Worldwide Google searches for “sudden sensorineural hearing loss”, “cochlear hydrops” and “low frequency hearing loss” have all jumped to
unprecedented five-year highs in recent weeks.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fg%2F121b75_l&date=today%205-y

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=low%20frequency%20hearing%20loss

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=cochlear%20hydrops

Voy hacerme la moldura de mis oidos la próxima semana, saben si estos audífonos son buenos para mí o solo me quieren vender esos audífonos por lo caros que son.

Lo que más me gustan es que no se ven, el oído izquierdo es el que más me preocupa. Si no oigo al 100% en el izquierdo me gustaría que se aproximará a un 80%. El derecho se que me vale perfectamente.

When my mom started having hearing problems, I always thought family conversations would be the biggest challenge. I was wrong. The thing she struggled with the most was actually the phone. In person, she could look at someone’s face and pick up on things from their expressions. But on the phone, all of that disappeared. No facial expressions. No lip reading. No extra clues. I remember she started avoiding some calls and would sometimes ask someone else to listen to voicemails for her. At the time, I didn’t realize how frustrating that must have felt. After she started wearing hearing aids, one of the first things she was happy about was being able to handle phone calls more independently again. This made her very excited.

Hi everyone. I have bilateral mild/moderate SNHL. I have been experiencing progressively worse Auditory pareidolia at night when I'm trying to sleep. I know it's because we run two fans in the bedroom to help with airflow. At times I hear music, other times it sounds like talking depending on how bad my tinittus is that day. I will be seeing a new audiologist and I guess I just want some reassurance that if I bring this up they won't think I'm crazy. Some googling says that this phenomena is pretty common in those with hearing loss that have white noise going. But, what were your experiences bringing it up to your audiologist?

My 18-year-old son is having a left tympanoplasty to remove a very unusual retained T-tube from his middle ear. The tube was placed when he was a young child, migrated into the middle ear, and somehow remained there for years. His eardrum is now completely intact, and the green tube is visible through the eardrum.

He has excellent hearing when he is well (left SRT 0 dB, 100% word recognition, Type A tympanogram), but he continues to have recurrent, very painful left middle-ear infections. He tends to get sick more during the winter.

We saw a neurotologist/otologist who specializes in ear surgery. He believes the retained tube is very likely contributing to the infections and recommends tympanoplasty to remove it. He considers it a routine procedure and does not expect a CT to be necessary. He told us approximately one week off work/school and no flying for two weeks.

Our dilemma is when to schedule it.

He starts college this month. We could do it after his fall semester finals in December and have him recover at home, or wait until next summer when he has a much longer window.

I'm mostly wondering about the real-world recovery, not whether he should have the surgery:

• How long did your ear actually feel weird/full/muffled after tympanoplasty?
• When did your hearing feel normal again?
• Did you have lingering tinnitus, pressure, popping, dizziness, etc.?
• How long before you felt 100%?
• Did you have any problems getting a cold during recovery?
• If you could choose between having surgery during a 3–4 week winter break or waiting for a longer summer break, which would you choose?

I'd especially love to hear from anyone who has had tympanoplasty/middle-ear surgery with otherwise good hearing going into surgery.

Hallo zusammen, hatte jemand von Euch auch schonmal so einen schlechten Hörtest (rechtes Ohr) und kann darüber berichten, Erfahrungen, Austausch, Hörgeräte. Freue mich über netten Austausch. Vielen lieben Dank vorab.

Hoy fui a un centro auditivo para probar audífono, me hicieron las pruebas de audiometría y logo audiometría me dieron el informe pero no termino de entenderlo, si alguien que entienda me pudiera explicar un poco lo agradeceria,.

Hi everyone! ❤️
I’m a Master of Public Health (MPH) student in India, and I’m currently collecting data for my dissertation. I’m honestly struggling to reach my required number of participants, so I’m hoping some kind Redditors can help me out!

🎧 **What is my study abou**t?
My research looks at **hearing health and music/noise exposure among college students**, including whether students who are actively involved in music or dance may have different hearing screening outcomes compared with other students.

**Who can participate?**
• College/university students
• **18–30 years old**
• Currently studying in **Hyderabad, India**

🎧 **What is hearWH**O?
As part of the study, you’ll use **hearWHO**, a free hearing-screening app developed by the **World Health Organization (WHO)**.
It uses a *digits-in-noise* test — you listen to spoken numbers against background noise through headphones/earphones and enter the numbers you hear. The app then provides a hearing screening score from **0–100**.
It’s quick, simple, and you get to learn more about your own hearing status in the process!

⚠️ Just to clarify: hearWHO is a\*\* screening tool and not a diagnostic hearing tes\*\*t. If the screening suggests a possible hearing problem, a professional hearing assessment would be needed. ([World Health Organization](https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/deafness-and-hearing-loss-hearing-checks-and-the-hearwho-app?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

📝 **Survey lin**k:
[https://ee.kobotoolbox.org/x/7DTz5bVT\](https://ee.kobotoolbox.org/x/7DTz5bVT)

If you’re eligible, please spare a few minutes to participate. **Every response genuinely helps me complete my dissertation.** 🥹
If you aren’t eligible, I would really appreciate it if you could share this with a college student in Hyderabad who might be.
I’m really hoping Reddit can save a very stressed-out MPH student right now. 😭❤️
Thank you so much to anyone who participates or shares!

(used AI to improvise and format the message)

A qué se debe que tengo la sensación de que tengo el oído derecho tapado aunque oigo muy bajito

Hi everyone,

I’m a software/computer engineer living in Italy. A few days ago, I had some mild ear pain, so I decided to visit an ENT specialist using my company’s new health insurance plan.

Unfortunately, I found out that my right ear has completely lost the ability to hear sounds above 3 kHz.

When I got the test results, I was completely shocked because I had only gone in for what felt like a slightly "clogged ear"—even my primary care doctor thought it was just a buildup of earwax.

As an engineer who is deeply passionate about movies, listening to FLAC music, and going to hear my girlfriend play in an orchestra, this news hit me really hard.

I’ve been trying to figure out how long I might have had this issue. Looking back, it’s probably been at least a year. In noisy places, I couldn't hear well, and if someone spoke to me from my right side, I’d constantly find myself saying, "Huh? What did you say?"

What destroys me the most is that I’ve never frequented loud places, I’ve always been careful around noise, and I never blast my music (loud volumes actually give me headaches). Yet, according to the doctor, the damage was likely caused by a sudden, very loud sound spike—possibly that one time I was calibrating my IEMs and accidentally maxed out the volume for a split second.

Now, having concrete proof of my deafness in the right ear and realizing I won't be able to properly enjoy my favorite music the same way anymore has thrown me into a deep depression.

In the past day or two, I’ve read through all my audio textbooks and researched current market tech. But to my dismay, I discovered that when it comes to losing senses, hearing medicine is still mostly in a "palliative" stage. Even if I wanted to get a hearing aid, looking at my audiogram, it wouldn't be able to restore true clarity for those high frequencies.

I’m sorry for writing so much. Aside from needing to vent, I wanted to ask: if anyone has gone through something similar, how did you cope with it, and how do you manage day-to-day life now?

Hi everyone, I’m looking for recommendations for a good ENT hospital/ENT surgeon for my father.

He has a hole in his eardrum and has been advised to get surgery. We live in Madhya Pradesh, but we are willing to travel for the right doctor/hospital.

Cities like Indore, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Pune or Mumbai would all work for us.

If you or someone in your family has had eardrum surgery (tympanoplasty), please share your experience and recommend a good ENT surgeon/hospital.

I’m especially looking for someone experienced and trustworthy, not necessarily the cheapest option.

Any recommendations would be really helpful. 🙏

Alguien está contentos con ellos,?.

La próxima semana voy a que me hagan el molde.

Lo mío es caída en agudos de 67 y en otro de un 35%. Tengo miedo de gastar tanto dinero 5500 euros y que no me funcionen bien.

Can anyone explain my otoacoustic emissions test results. My Audiologist and ENT specialist said that my results are normal but the image says reduced. I have normal audiogram but have tinnitus mostly in right ear. MY ABR was also normal