Sudden Hearing loss _{Page 37 of 105}

Nitrams2000 - Your feeling could be an after effect of your cruise.
Many many moons ago, as a student I went with a group of young people to Algeria and the Northern part of the Sahara desert. We flew there by plane but came back by ship.
And the funny thing is that out of the 36 of us young women, 29 (me included)felt very funny the next day, not really dizzy, but like we were on some kind of medication, but we were not and then the following day, we had to take a train to get back to the North East (Alsace-Lorraine) and the strange feeling left us.
We never did find out what it was, but several of the students ended up seeing their doctors and were told that it probably was an after effect of the time on the ship??????????
Take care

still have this dizzy feeling and feel sorta clouded... I am not sure what it is. Usually when i get off the ship i feel this for like a day but i got off sat. and now its monday and I still have this. its really worrying me. Does anyone else get this??? it feels like everything is swaying back and forth. sorta like im drunk. but not spinning. its not like vertigo but it could be slight vertigo. I dont know but i dont much like it.

Nitrams2000 - If I were you I think I would see an ENT guy, one that you can trust of course.
I wonder if this is a remnant of your onset of SSNHL?
Like you said, one day after a cruise would make sense to have this sensation of dizziness or light vertigo but several days later, seems to be too long for a remnant of a cruise.
Hope that some doctor can shed some light on this
Take care

Has anyone been precscribed Amytriptolene? The doctor prescribed this today for the ear pain and TMJ but when i went to collect it the pharmacist told me it has side effects related to ear problems and tinnitus and advised me not to take it! Any thoughts?

Amytriptolene is a muslcle relaxer and It's an anti-depressant, but is good for numbing pain. I have not heard of many side effects other then it makes you groggy or dizzy when you wake in the morning. it als has been said in rare cases that it may cause 'tachycardia' which is a form of making you heart beat a little faster but I wouldnt worry about it to much. Out of all the reading I did on it I could find anyone that said anything bad about it except for the groggy and dizzy.

Thanks Nitrams 2000, I spoke to the doctor again and he said to try it as he was sure that it would help with the pain and was unlikely to make the tinnitus worse but if I got any tinnitus in my good ear to stop taking it so I will. Was also fitted for a hearing aid to day - I am having a green one, might as well make a statement!

after reading up on why I have this dizzy feeling or sort of light headedness I have foud out thatI might have developed this from my ear problem or what I have may have caused my ear problem in the first place.

We all know that I have SSNHL but when you add the symptom of dizzy to it or light headed then you find that it narrows it down to only a few things instead of ton of things like before.

the 4 main things I could find when this symptom is added is.

1. Lipase Deficiency
2. Labrynthitis
3. labryinthis.

the first one seems to have some cures and the second one cures itself after time. the 3rd one you are most liley stuck with.

to read up on lipase I found a very good article here.

http://www.angelfire.com/tn/moonlodge/symptoms.html

also you can become a member of a extremly helpfull board for this called http://www.dizzytimes.com

Want to share the following with the board before I forget.
Went out to do some shopping and when I came back I checked my mail among other things there was some documentation from 'Life Line Screening'. I decided that it would be good to take these 4 tests and I called that outfit (they go around the country to do these 4 tests for $129.00, They will be in my town on 1/30/07.
Got to talk to a Rep on the phone and I told here that I will pay by check when the tests are done, no way will I give her my credit card over the phone bla bla bla. So we got to talk for a while and I told her that I do not have a single grey hair on my head because I take 50mg of Zinc (among other supplements) every day this since my lung cancer. She asked me if I get head colds, I said Yes. She then told me that zinc interferes with head colds and that my onset of SSNHL could possibly have been related to the daily intake of Zinc. I have so far not checked online to find anything about that, but thought I would give you all that information.
Of course as you all know there is so much controversy when it comes to supplements; but I do know that I am still alive when the doctors had given me 6 to 8 months to live in 1989.
The supplements did help me I know that much.
Take care

Hi all, I should not have been so quick earlier today in telling you about zinc.
Quite to the contrary of what that person told me on the phone, I have read about several studies that support the fact that zinc actually supports the immune system and the inner ear hair.
But then again why did it not prevent my onset of SSNHL.
All very confusing, I sometimes think that there is too much information online for the population at large with no medical training whatsoever.

Hello, everyone. Thank you, Niatram for making this forum active and sharing all of your knowledge so unselfishly. For me, I still am hanging with the cause of my SSHL was with dental treatment. I was healthy before and after. My ear got so sensitive 30 min. after the nobocane and I had a vertigo after the drilling. Next morning I lost hearing 100 %. I do not believe in coincidence, you know. I mentioned it to my dentist but he only put the info in my file. I asked ADA if there was a case like that before, but they do not take me seriously. I feel like you bring your car for a tune up and you come home with transmission dead. Sorry, I was just frustrated today. I always think about you all. Thank you for sharing. Hope this forum goes for ever or rather not(?). Love. mstctiger

Hi everyone
Just to let you all know I went to the physio clinic and have had 2 sessions with the vertigo therapist.
She did a lot of testing and I have moderate to severe vertigo.
I apparently use my eyes to landmark and stabalize so when I had to close my eyes I could not do the exercises and had a hard time.She gave me exercises to do and they will help me. She said I have done really well to this point which I fully credit to my husband who made me move a lot right from the beginning to learn to compensate.
I won't be funded after the end of the month at work in the OR so don't know where I will be able to work in the hospital. I feel a bit down as it's almost 5 months and my tinnitus is pretty much the same, vertigo is a factor but fairly controlled, and I still have no hearing in the left ear.Also worried about the letter my doc. (ENT) will send in as he dosen't seen to have much idea what is going on with me. I get little response when I tell him what symptoms I am having and this has been since the beginning.
Arrrggg!!!
Anyhow it's one day at a time right now so will put one foot in front of the other. Am very glad I have this site to read.Thanks all!!!!

Hi everyone
So mstctiger you still do not have your hearing back either? I do not believe it was caused by the dentist. I got my onset of SSNHL while driving in less than an hour on 1/22/06. Saw an ENT guy the next day, got 6 days of Prednisone treatment, distorted hearing came back, but instead of getting more Prednisone, I then got BIAXIN-XL, at the time I did not know about ototoxic drugs so I took the darn stuff, that killed some of my hearing in my good ear and a few days later, same noise in the partially deaf ear and that evening all hearing got lost again and it still is the same. I have constant Tinnitus in the deaf ear, the famous Boston doc told me that this is now brain staticnd I will have it for the rest of my life lovely.....
Now I am so worried that I get this SSNHL in the other ear also. I think often about Seattlestan, who experienced 2 onset of SSNHL in a span of a year. However he was lucky to get his hearing back each time. He got much heavier doses of Prednisone which I believe helped him. I believe that is what helped him and he did not get twice spontaneous recovery as my famous doctor told me
I believe that these doctors have no real clue as to what causes these onsets.
I went to the best here in New England but did not get more answers than from the first ENT doc I saw.
Anitime - you work all day long among doctors and yet none of your colleagues can come up with an answer for you? That is rather scary....
I hope they can at least find a job that you will be able to do at the Hospital where you work. They owe you that much.
Also, to those who wrote to the Oprah show, how come there is no reply? each time I see Oprah I think is that the day she will talk about SSNHL? why is there so little interest in the subject?
What will it take to make it a headline??????
In the meanwhile we have to take one day at the time as you said Anitime.
Take care all

action reaction.

yesterday I talked for a long time with the new girl that I met that also has SSNHL. She beleives and some fo her doctors beleive that she has a rare disorder of Labrynthitis. This is when Labyrnthitis which normally causes tinnitus, vertigo and dizziness, has also cuased her hearing loss. SHe officially has never been diagnosed with anything but she has beeen to 3 ent's and to 2 hospitals.

Labryinthitis is a temporary problem in most cases. The symptoms are varying but consist of dizzyness or swaying, vertigo, pulsating feeling in your head, night sweats, memory loss, trouble focusing, trouble concentrating,

to read up on labryinthitis you can go to this site.

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic290.htm

Here are somethings i have learned about it... I call it action reaction or cause in effect. lots of times when we do something out of the normal especially, loud noises or something dramatic, we can cause a action in our body that makes are body react in a negative way. for instance the first time i lost my hearing I was at a party and it was rather loud and I had to much to drink. plus I had been dieting pretty hard core and just got over the flu. all that at once may hvae cause my body to react. My body may have had some sort of a attack or shut down. it may have said ' thats it I have had it and I am shutting down'. all the following things i had recently had in my life

Stress- Business related
Dieting- over did it
partying-
flu- just got over
cruise- justt went on before
dental- 4 crowns 2 filings
trauma - i got punched by a stranger who thought i was smeone else.

all these things happened to me within a 2 month period of when my hearing loss happened. Now for the irionic part. I have spoken with 3 or 4 people that have the same thing I have and the all report the same exact symptoms and the similar things happened to them just before they lost there hearing.

here are my symptoms to date.

1.night sweats. off and on not all the time.

2. jettery feeling in my head like i had to much to drink or swaying feeling. this I had most recently got. i had it once before when i first got this.

3. Tinnitus. rings in my left ear but my right ear which was one with hearing loss hardly rings at all but both do ring.

4 Rash. had it behing my neck in the back part. also had it on my head in a few places.

5. stiff neck and back of my head.

6. dizzyness having trouble thinking or focusing on things.


mstctiger could be right. somethings we do even the smallest things can cause reactions in our body they we will pay for later. it is a sad resul but it is true. mstctiger's problem shows a action and reaction as in all of us. what makes it hard is even if we find the cause we still have no cure. :( very sad.

I pray for us all. I do not like feeling drunk all the time and have trouble focusing , talking, and concentrating. I fell stoned.

Hi, Bonjour,

Saturday night (january 6th) I was talking with one of my friend on the phone when suddenly, I felt something strange with my hearing. I thought it was his new phone connection via cable since he just moved to a new place. I even whistled to hear what the sound was like, I only heard the reverberation in my room, it had nothing to do with his phone. I hung up and did the valsalva (while blocking my nose one create a higher pressure within his head), it did nothing. I thought it would go by itself. I was still fine not knowing what I know now. The following day, sunday, when I woke up I still could not hear normally, but I had not yet blocked any of my ears to do some sort of test. After supper, while my wonderful daughter was talking to me, I blocked each of my ears alternatively to find out that her angelic voice through my right ear was sounding like a cheap ear piece (headphones) listened from very far, or a badly eq'ed mike on a cheesy guitar amp. There I realized something was wrong. But the worst shall follow. Sunday night, we went to the drugstore and I explained to the pharmacist what had happened to my right ear, I then asked for medication available without prescription that would solve my problem, I knew from her reaction that this was propably the most stupid question she'd heard in years. Frankly, so far I thought that it had something to do with influenza or flu'; although I am not sick. The worst was yet to come. The following day, monday, I still can't hear with my right ear. I take my lovely one to school, it is the first day of class in 2007. As a widower, single parent, after 17 days spent on christmas holidays, I have a lot to catch up on work. So the last thing that I needed what to spoil time in a waiting room (here in Québec, it is awfully long). So I finally end up in the doctor's cabinet, he urged me to go to the hospital and meet an EMT. I waited 6 hours at the hospital's emergency; the doctor looked at both my ears and could not see anything wrong. I said that I wanted some further investigation done by an EMT, she went to get the doctor's schedule closing the door behind her, at this very moment I heard (and I have ever since) the sound of water boiling in my head...I was able to get a rendez-vous with the EMT for the day after, tuesday, 1:30 pm. I was afraid not to hear my name, and the steel door that separates the waiting room from the doctor's office was making a huge slamming sound everytime it was closed. When I finally got inside, one doctor came and asked for details, I said that I went swimming and that I reached the end of the pool while swimming backwards on my back side, I knocked my head, I had also went to the bottom of the pool. I had a broken skull when I was 3 months old. I also spent 10 years of my life as a professionnal musician playing venues. He used the tuning fork on my head on every side, on one of my tooth, when he placed it next to my right ear, I did not hear it at all. Then he proceeded with the explanation of SSNHL, I broke down into tears. I told him that I need both my ears to make a living, I write songs, I sing, I am a multi-instrumentist, I am a sound engineer but first and foremost I raise a kid on my own and I need to hear and enjoy all that she has to say. I was so sad. So sad. Then the EMT came and put those huge glasses on my eyes and pumped some air into my right ear in order to see if it's a fistulae, negative. Then I went for an audiogram, when I saw the results I was so upset. My ear is now less than an execrable microphone. I went back to the EMT, but he's so busy and I just don't think that he could understand that my whole life was suddenly falling to bits. He prescribed me prednisone 80 mg for 5 days and then 60 mg 2 days, 40 and 20 mg, 2 days each. I woke up very early today, I was so sad, I wanted this to be a dream. I spent the day seeking for information on internet. There came all your testimony and the sorrowful truth. I just can't accept it, I tried to play the guitar and sing but I could no longer hear myself, life has taken me to a dismal abode...

please exsuse the poor english, I speak french and can only hear english with one ear...

al

deaf musician, I am so sorry to hear your story which is so similar to mine amd many others. It is very early days for you and maybe the prednisone will work. Ask your doctor for an anti-viral too like aciclovir because even though you did not feel ill you could have had a virus without symptoms.Your descriptions of the distortion in your hearing is amazing. I lost most of my hearing overnight on 25th November 2006, I know it is not much comfort but if you do not get the hearing back, in most cases at least you get used to the wirdness of sounds and the tinnitus. There is some comfort in knowing that - you are not alone.

deaf musician - I could answer in French as I come from Alsace-Lorraine (pres de Strasbourg), but of course I have to answer in English. Your post brought tears to my eyes.
You are obviously still a young man and therefore I hope and pray that your hearing will come back after the treatment of Prednisone.
Mine did not but they only gave me 6 days worth of the medication. There are some people on this forum where the Prednisone worked, but they took it for a lot longer. Also some did get shots of the steroids directly into the ear. Please insist on getting that. My doctor (a famous one) here in the Boston area told me that he does not believe in the shots, that it is probably spontaneous recovery. I think it is B.S. because people on the West Coast getting these shots seem to recover. Also on the West Coast as well as in Germany they use the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. I was also refused that treatment and now on January 22nd it will be a year that I am deaf in the right ear. And I have moderate to severe loss in the left ear and so much Tinnitus. Please check on the Internet 'Ototoxic Drugs Exposed' by a Dr. Neil Bauman, and do make sure if they (the doctors) suggest antibiotics that none of them is included in the list of ototoxic drugs. When I had that onset of SSNHL, the hearing in my left ear was fine, but 2 weeks later I was told to take a regimen of BIAXIN-XL, and that took away some of my left ear hearing.....
I wish I was a year younger and know all what I know now.
I hope for you that the doctors in Quebec will stand by you with the right treatment.
Believe me there are some wonderful people posting on this forum but some of them insisted on getting the needed medications and they have done great. I was too 'gentille' with my doctors, please please keep after them.
Your story is so sad and your child who obviously lost her Maman, needs her Papa.
For your information, I now wear a Savia 211 BTE from Phonak behind the left ear and I do hear and have 100% speech recognition, and I am therefore not a candidate for a cochlear implant.
If you hearing should go further down, please know that these days you can have a cochlear implant (a CI) as they call it. See a web page forum called myhearingloss.org there you will see what these people (with CIs) say. I lost my hearing in less than an hour while driving from one town here in MA to another town in R.I. to have coffee with my X mother in law. While having coffee and pasteries, my hearing left me with a roaring waterfall sound for a few hours. Went to the ER that evening and heard for the first time in my live the words 'sudden deafness'
I hope Nitrams2000 and Seattlestan will see and read your posts. I have so much admiration for these guys because they fought a good fight with their doctors and they have their hearing back.
Take care and get well

deaf musician

first of all if jan 6 this year is when you first started feeling this then the good news is you got time and your catching early. prednisone is right and you need it but you need it for moore days. it should more like 10 to 12 days.

alos you need a shot to the ear. the ear shot is an injection that doesnt hurt that you wont feel but is very important. they do one a week for 3 weeks. you will need this fast though. if you dont get the shots in the first month it is so hard afterwards. if you dont find some one to do the shots in canada then its time to fly to the states.... now is the time to ask your self how much is your hearing worth to you. what are you willing to do..... for me the answer was everything. I lost it completly in one ear and got it back but i used the prednisone , took the ear shots and went to accupuncture, we have 4 or 5 people that got it back but none have done it without ear shots or pills.... you can do them both at the sametime.... if you need a list of doctors i have them but if you dont do it im afraid you will be stuck with it...... heck with insurance be prepared to fly to get ti done faster and go for it

deaf musician

Please heed the advice from Nitrams2000 and Hope01 on demanding what has worked for some of us. Our experiences and the plethora of web site information indicates that 60 mg. of Prednisone for 2 weeks (and with a 3rd week of tapering off of that drug)is the best shot (so to speak) we have, within 2 weeks of hearing loss. It beats waiting around for spontaneous recovery that may or may not come.


After 10 days of Prednisone in October, 2006 and having my hearing at 80% recovery, I had the injection of Decadron which brought back the last 20%. Today I am OK and live with tinnitus in my left ear, the same ear as the hearing loss.

There is a lot of information in all of the 30 some pages of postings that you may want to review on possible causes and approaches, both to dealing with the immediate situation and to mitigate it happening again if you should regain your hearing. Good luck.

deaf musician
Nitrams2000 and Seattlestan are right.
However, if you should consider flying to the States your preference would probably be New England because of distance.
But that is not a good option, because the best here in Boston is MEEI (Mas Eye and Ear) and that is where I was told no shot in the ear, no hyperbaric oxygen chamber and not more than 6 days of Prednisone.... the primary investigator for SSNHL Dr. Steven Rauch at MEEI does not believe in these treatments and him and his subordinates from Harvard Medical School think that these recoveries are simply spontaneous. They say there is no proof that any of these treatments help.
I am so mad and sad about all of this. I would have opened my house for you I have a guest bedroom that you could have used and I have another bedroom that your child could have used.
I have no idea how things are in the New York area, but here in New England you do not have these options that the forum talks about and which are done in other parts of the US
I am so sorry
P.S. You can see some videos of the above doctor on the net.
When I hear my family and friends tell me that I am in the best of hands, I could scream..... I mean it

report

my dizziness is no better so im going to go see a doctor.

i dont know who to go see first so I will try atkins and go from there. :(

right when you think this is all over with it reminds you that it has not even started yet.

I'm afraid with my other symptoms added to this that I may have something else real serious wrong with me.

Bonjour, Hi,

I am so thankful, thank you Jewel41, Hope01, Nitrams2000, Seattlestan, thank you kindly for your advices.

In the meantime, I am really freakin'out, I lost appetite and the desire to cook so I took my sweet child to the restaurant, there was some music in the background and I could barely hear the serveuse, I am so desperate, the guy next to us was listening to his I-pod with a big smile on his face; I sure envy him.

I went to the drugstore (a place I never go) and felt intoxicated by the noise.

I was waiting for the subway, I heard it coming so I looked in the tunnel until it came behind me from the other direction. Am-I becoming mad? This is way too drastic.

I sure need to be pro-active, so I found a caisson hyperbare, but then I need my ENT to agree, so I called his secretary, Sir Dr. is only there once a week, he'll be there next tuesday, but first you need to have a Dr's request and they won't give you a prompt RV, so I gently exposed my point of view and the knowledge that I was acquainted with; the answer, from the secretary that had lost my hospital's card and found it the garbage right before my very eyes (she also lost part of my file), the answer was, you don't need to do that as you're under control (hopefully not hers).

See, I feel so powerless, yes I wish I could have a shot in my ear, I found another ENT that I am meeting next monday, I want to have somebody else's opinion. Tomorrow I will go early and ask for an anti-viral, I might not be sick but I feel something strange within my body, one of my arm was aching last night.

I'm so angry at the moment, the tinnitus is driving me nuts. I am a healthy person, I do not smoke, neither do I do drugs, nor do I drink. Mostly vegetarian. But I love coffee and I'm now giving up. May I indulge myself in some Québec's swearing? I guess it's not worth it. At the moment I feel my dignity has been taken away from me.

Par chance je ne suis pas seul, merci beaucoup Hope01, je suis très touché par votre hospitalité .

I wish to make an apology for my anger.

al

Your anger is normal and justified. For the tinnitus if it really is driving you mad try using an ipod in that ear only with 'white noise', just so loud that you can hear it. This is what my audiologist has told me to do, it supposedly retrains your brain to know what sounds are external - not sure it does that but it takes your mind off the tinnitus and is quite soothing. Knowing which direction sounds come from is tricky but again my audiologist says practice so you could play a game with your daughter where she comes into a room when you are not looking and makes a sound and you point to where it is coming from. This may not help either but it might and it will help your daughter to feel included. Wishing you loads of luck!

deaf musician time is a very important issue for you. If you have the money I would consider coming to the sates. you need more perdnisone to take for a longer duration and you need the ear sots. i dont even know if anyone does the injection in canada but i would go where i had to if i were you. time is running out.

deaf musician
i have tried to find a ear docotr or ent the does ear injections in quebec. i can not find any. you need someone in Neurotology or a Neurotologist. if you like you can call me to talk about this 386-295-5156 but time for you is running out. i would suggest flying to the states. i can find you a pretty big list of doctors here that do it. but after searching i can find none in quebec.

Dear deaf musician, Nitrams2000 is absolutely right. Time will be running out; this SSNHL is a medical emergency here in the States. Get on your ENT's throad so to speak to get the right amount of Prednisone now.
I hope you do not think we are ridiculous here with our haste. But it is an emergency and your window for healing is not weeks and weeks until your doctors 'find the time' to see you.
JeWel14 has some good ideas to take your mind of the Tinnitus.
As for you Nitrams2000, you might want to see when a company called 'life Line Screening' is coming to your area. I know that you are still a young man, but young people can get strokes also. This outfit does 4 tests for $129.00 and it takes about 2 hours. It will check through ultrasound technology your carotid arteries. Again, you proably do not have to worry about such things at your tender age, but I had a friend that had a fatal stroke at 39. So I think it is never too early to check for such things. You probably want to work by process of elimination in order to find out what is really bothering you. Especially since you say that before that onset of SSNHL you were perfectly healthy.
When I think that before 1/22/06 I had no idea at all about this SSNHL and how scary it really is.
This is why it is freaking us out when we get it.

Hope01

thanks internet mom. :)

I found the site and quickly set an appointment for monday morning in edgewater at 11:45 A.M. they are going to do a full life line screening. they are going to do it all on me. :)