Possible Permanent profound deafness after labyrinthitis

[Newhouse76]

After an MRI and a number of hearing teats, an ENT consultant has advised that I am suffering profound deafness in my affected ear.

I am taking a weeks worth of strong steroids this week, if this does not work my ears will be injected the following week. If this does not work I will be most probably profoundly deaf in my effected ear. We have to talk about what will happen at that stage but he has advised that a normal hearing aid would not work. There is about a 50 percent success rate.

Have been feeling very panicky when i am around more than 3/4 people as the sound becomes very muffled even when people are talking directly at me. I do a job where I a spend much of my time in committee meetings and negotiating in large meetings so have no idea who this might work. Im trying not to think too far ahead but as a single parent im worried about the smoke alarm going off in the middle of the night at not hearing it!

Has anyone suffered this previously at all?

Bump..

I'm bumping this for you too. I hope someone comes along who has knowledge of this but meantime hopefully the treatments they are initially suggesting would help. Could you stay off work till it settles down?

Hi , sorry I didn’t see this sooner.
I am profoundly deaf due to this . I now have two hearing aids and they work enough for me to get on day to day life , manage to use the phone at work as they have put adjustments on to connect to the hearing aids .
Without them I can’t hear anything other than muffled sounds , so DH has said when our baby is born in August we will get a bed sensor for me to be able to wake up if baby cries if DH is not here (he does on calls for emergencies at the hospital). I was told the hearing aids wouldn’t likely work but they’ve changed my life . Don’t get me wrong it’s not like normal hearing , it’s robotic but it’s better than nothing . I also sign BSL fluently which has helped .
I hope the treatment works for you though x

I haven’t had labyrinthitis, but wanted to chip in to reassure you about work. I’m profoundly deaf in both ears and have a professional role that also involves a lot of committee work and roundtable negotiations. There’s a huge range of gadgets to use and practical things you can do that will be enormously helpful for managing various work situations. Supportive colleagues are a great help too!

Just to give you a couple of examples – there’s flashing lights for fire alarms and doorbells, and for meetings, there are a range of devices that work with hearing aids and cochlear implants (if hearing aids are not an option, you might be eligible for an implant on the affected side?). I also tell people about my deafness and explain that I’ll need to be able to choose a seat that works for me, even when going to meetings with partner organisations overseas, and so far it has worked out well.

To begin with, I’d wait until things have settled down and you know the outcome of the steroid treatment, etc. Once you have a definite diagnosis and your hearing has stabilised at its new normal, you’ll be able to borrow equipment from social services to try out, and the Access to Work scheme should allow you to buy any equipment you need to work effectively.You might also like to try lipreading classes – if you have some hearing in your other ear, lipreading will help you in noisy environments too.