Am I stupid to worry about my loss of hearing?

[Bigpinkbubblebath]

I woke up on Tuesday morning with limited hearing in my left ear and tinnitus. I went to the doctors on Wednesday and was seen by a nurse who looked in my ear and advised everything looked normal. She prescribed steroid drops for my ear

I was increasingly annoyed yesterday so took myself of to an Urgent Care Centre. Another nurse looked at my ears and throat and again confirmed everything looks fine. No sign of infection.

I’m seriously anxious about losing hearing in my ear with no obvious cause. Nobody I’ve seen seems to think it’s a big deal.

Am I being overly anxious?

A friend had this and finally got diagnosed - with a brain tumour. Do not get fobbed off!

I was sent for an MRI when I woke with sudden hearing loss and tinnitus in one ear. It was to rule out a particular type of (benign) tumour.

Sounds like SSHL.
This is an emergency. You need steroids - both oral and possibly through the eardrum - to try and recover some of your hearing.
You need to push to see a good ENT and a hearing test ASAP. Pay privately if you need to. Also join a couple of SSHL pages on FB. There are countless stories of people being fobbed off by medical professionals until it is too late to do anything.
If it is SSHL there's still a chance some of your hearing could come back with prompt treatment. Best of luck OP.

Another voice to say needs urgent referral - in part to investigate acoustic neuroma

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/acoustic-neuroma/

Hope you can get some answers!

i had this a few days after bashing my head on a cupboard door. Saw stars at the time but didn’t think anything more about it. Must have had some internal swelling which caused loss of hearing and tinnitus. It took a few months for it to go. Is it possible you have injured yourself?

Just for anyone who might come across this thread in the future. I took myself off to A&E after reading some of these comments and was indeed diagnosed with Sensorineural Hearing Loss with a prescription of steroids for the next week.

I’m so glad I posted here. Here’s hoping I can salvage my hearing.

Thanks for the update

Really hope all recovers quickly. If you can face it, please do feed this back to your GP surgery. It is concerning that the person you saw didn’t send you on for further assessment.

Shocking that the doctors didn’t consider this. Thank goodness for the power of Mumsnet.

Yes sorry to say I know two people that this has happened to; there is a brain tumour called an acoustic neuroma which grows on your aural nerve. Rare, but you need to be fully checked out.

According to the OP, she saw two nurses initially. You can't blame the doctors if she wasn't seen by them!

Sadly there are a lot of places where nurses are used as the first point of contact for patients with undifferentiated health problems (because it's the cheaper option, usually). Nurse training is quite different from that of doctors, and the range of knowledge of the two professions is not the same. Nurses should not be used as substitute doctors, any more than the wards should be staffed by doctors who haven't been taught how to nurse.

OP, hope it all works out ok!

Really glad you went to A&E and got the treatment OP. Hope you get some recovery of your hearing. You should give feedback for the nurses so that they don't miss this again.

Ah thank goodness you're on steroids now OP. Sorry about your hearing, I hope you get it back. Let us know how you get on. If you search on this forum there have been a few members who have been through it over the years (I lost some of mine last year from an infection and sadly it didn't recover).

How are you getting on now? Any improvement in your hearing yet?

NHS. Guidance https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng98/chapter/recommendations#sudden-or-rapid-onset-of-hearing-loss