Hearing loss

[shimi]

Hi,
I wss just wondering if any of you experienced sudden hearing loss,even not fully loosing the ability to hear and than it comes back after a while ...

[Sangye]

I had this happen last year. I had severe, acute onset of vertigo with complete hearing loss in one ear. It all happened within 10 minutes. It wasn't Wegs, but due to viral labryinthitis. It had to be treated immediately with high dose pred for 2 weeks, which turned into several months. That restored much of my hearing. I also had 2 injections of steroids into the ear to restore most of my hearing. I was very lucky to have the experts at JHU who were very much on top of things.

[drz]

My hearing fades in and out very often. Some times I think it is my hearing aid acting up but usually it is my Eustachian tube closing down. By pushing and pulling on my ear and yawning i can sometimes open it up again and then hearing improves. Sometimes it lasts a few minutes, sometimes a few seconds. It is very annoying and a major inconvenience. I was told a BAHA hearing aid might eliminate this problem since it transmit sound directly through the mastoid bone and not through the air.

I had high dosage of steroids and injection of steroid into the ear that lost virtually all its hearing after Wegs wiped it out but it didn't help me. This ear had normal hearing before the Wegs attacked it. The Wegs also wiped out the balance mechanism on that side which is also another major pain. Vestibular rehab helped me learn to compensate some for the poor balance.

[marta]

Thanks for the tip drz. I've had my eustachian tubes jammed up since I had my flare a year ago. I had tubes put in my ear drums in April of this year but the ETubes have not opened up yet. I know because last time I had the tubes in my ears and my eustachians opened up I could whistle out my ears... this amazing bar trick has yet to make an appearance this go round, so I know my eustachian tubes are a no go. I will try your trick of pushing and pulling on my ears to see if it wakes them up.

Shimi, depends on what's causing the hearing loss but in my case getting tubes put in my ear by an ENT - very short mostly painless procedure - did the trick for the hearing loss. Almost immediately. I was quite deaf before getting them done. Looked like a deer in headlights during larger gatherings.

Best of luck.

[drz]

Thanks for the tip drz. I've had my eustachian tubes jammed up since I had my flare a year ago. I had tubes put in my ear drums in April of this year but the ETubes have not opened up yet. I know because last time I had the tubes in my ears and my eustachians opened up I could whistle out my ears... this amazing bar trick has yet to make an appearance this go round, so I know my eustachian tubes are a no go. I will try your trick of pushing and pulling on my ears to see if it wakes them up.
.

Part of the reason this might work for me is I have an ear mold in that ear for my hearing aid and pushing on it creates movement in ear canal. Yawning also seems to work for me. One trick to try open the Eustachian tubes is a maneuver my ENT doctors taught me. Hold both nostrils closed and try blow your nose hard. Not long but just a short quick pop. Eventually your ear drum should pop as air gets in and then yawning can release it and you should hear this happen. This works best to release fluid build up when the Eustachian tube is blocked.

[pberggren1]

Part of the reason this might work for me is I have an ear mold in that ear for my hearing aid and pushing on it creates movement in ear canal. Yawning also seems to work for me. One trick to try open the Eustachian tubes is a maneuver my ENT doctors taught me. Hold both nostrils closed and try blow your nose hard. Not long but just a short quick pop. Eventually your ear drum should pop as air gets in and then yawning can release it and you should hear this happen. This works best to release fluid build up when the Eustachian tube is blocked.

Most things I have read and the 9 ENTs I have seen have all told me not to blow my nose too hard. In fact they tell me to blow gently with one nostril open. My tubes are dead and will never function again. Most likely too much scar tissue in them from the granulomas healing up.

[vdub]

One trick to try open the Eustachian tubes is a maneuver my ENT doctors taught me. Hold both nostrils closed and try blow your nose hard. Not long but just a short quick pop. Eventually your ear drum should pop as air gets in and then yawning can release it and you should hear this happen.

That called a valsalva. It's one of the first things we were taught at flight school. We would use the technique multiple times per day when going from one elevation to another.

Sometimes we would have one tube stopped up and not the other. In that case, we would block the "good" tube by closing it with your hand or finger and then block your nose and blow gentley to force the are pressure to work totally on the bad ear. Yawning of moving your jaw while doing a valsalva is also a good technique.

But, sadly for Phil, it's not going to bring back his tubes......

[Rose]

That feeling of a blocked eustachian tubes drove me insane. The things I got up to to try and unblock my ears. I am lucky I did not do myself permanent damage!! This was one of my earliest symptoms before diagnosis. Infact at this point I had not even visited my doctor. Eventually had to as nothing I did helped.

[malin]

While my ENT was trying to figure out what exactly had happened to my ears (too much scar tissue to let sound pass natrually, I need hearing aids to amplify sounds) He was trying out a lot of different things on me to see if any of them made a difference. One of the things I had to do was use a Nose Balloon! Although it didn't work for me because nothing could really help my problem, it's still a good option for blocked eustachian tubes.

I know this is basically the same what you all have described with blowing anyway but my doctor told me this is quite a good way to now over do it, as you have to keep an eye on not blowing the balloon too big or blowing it up to quickly.

It's basically just a small balloon that you blow up with your nose. lol sounds funny and looks funny but can be very effective.

Here's a link to an article about it:
Nose Balloon : Aardvarchaeology

Oh and another good point about the balloon, made by one of the comments on the article:

"A good thing about the balloon method is that the pressure can't get too high. The balloon just gives."

[Sangye]

Wow, I have never heard of the nose balloon! Gotta love the name of that website. hahaha