Thanks, Tony. Yes, for those reasons, I totally agree with your skepticism. It's all super frustrating that something as important as hearing seems to be mostly a medical mystery: we all have different reasons and causes for our losses and we have varying responses to treatments, and most of us have lousy responses to treatments. None of my ENTs have any useful treatment to suggest. It makes me a little crazy. And all the things I've tried are dismissed by my ENTs who say, "Sure, it could be helping, but it's most likely coincidence and your hearing will most likely get bad again, and each time it'll get worse, and we have nothing to suggest." And so I've posted what I've tried that could be helping, but I agree with you that we're all different, so who the heck really knows.
I woke up July 28, 2020 at age 47 with sudden hearing loss in my left ear. No ENT could suggest a cause. I believe it happened because I had dramatically over-exerted and dehydrated myself which I believe upset the pressure balance in my cochlea. A steroids squirt into my inner ear fixed my hearing for two days, which gave me hope the hair cells aren't dead, just over-pressured. And that's why I went into extreme anti-inflammation and also cleaned up my diet, exercise, and sleep habits. My right ear went bad but only for a couple weeks and has since been ok. In June 2021, my left ear finally improved. The two attached audiograms show Dec 2020 when things were still bad, and also June 2021 when things improved. And then Sept 2021 it went bad again. And then two days ago, it got better, and the only difference over the last two days is half a Delta 8 gummy every 12 hours.
Have you found any alternative treatment that helps you? Have you found any researcher working on your situation?
Thanks,
Dan
@danr Wow! Whether it was the steroids or the improved lifestyle, that is a significant improvement. Wouldn't it be nice if a researcher was assigned to you to monitor and determine the real 'fix'? More bothersome is that when your left ear was bad, a hearing aid would mostly have been prescribed. When your hearing returned, the aid would have been over-amplifying. Your outcome would have been worse and a hearing aid in the future may not have been an option due to the physiological aspects from a bad experience.
To answer your questions, the Hearing Health Foundation, http://www.hhf.org is funding a lot of research that could benefit all of us with hearing loss. I support that organization as well as the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), http://www.hearingloss.org. There seems to be a lot of HLAA supporters on this Mayo group so the benefits are real.
As far as finding other alternative treatments? No, I haven't found anything that helps but I do give up too easily. If a treatment involves putting something man-made into my body, I don't give it a chance due to any possible side affects. I've tried CBD gummies but not the THC. The products that we find in the party stores are probably not that good so if I do try the THC, they will come from a dispensary.
Tony in Michigan