I don’t know if anyone would be interested in this (my experience) but I thought I’d put it out there anyway…
3 years ago (the day before my birthday) my right ear suddenly felt “plugged” in the evening. I couldn’t clear it by holding my nose and blowing. The next morning, I realized that I was completely deaf in that ear. No hearing whatsoever.
16 hours after the first “plugged” feeling, I was barfing my guts out and I couldn’t stand up. Even sitting up produced violent spinning. My doctor told me that I had lost my balance system and would need to rebuild it.
3 years on, and I’m mostly recovered but still have some weird residual effects.
This is the barest outline of what happened. Ask Away!
Woah, sounds like Meneire’s, only way faster and more serious. And yeah, anything affecting the inner ear can cause sudden extreme nausea. Is tinnitus in your other ear a side effect for you?
Well, that’s the thing. They don’t know. Both ENT’s I went to (one of whom is at Stanford Hospital) said that in 90% of the cases of sudden hearing loss, they don’t know the cause. In the other 10%, I think they said that a neuroma (?) on the nerve that controls hearing is the cause. I didn’t have a neuroma – I’m not sure whether I should say “fortunately” or “unfortunately”.
They tested me for Meniere’s, and I don’t have it, and also said that my hearing loss is unrelated to Meniere’s. Though, I can see the similarities.
Yeah, the nausea was pretty awful. The first day, almost any movement would make me nauseous, and I vomited on several occasions. After the first day, I still had some nausea, but the vomiting went away. Of course, by this time I had learned what not to do.
Tinnitus, ah yes. That’s kind of a double whammy. I had had mild tinnitus in both ears prior to the hearing loss. I still have mild tinnitus in my good ear. To add insult to injury, however, I also have moderate to severe tinnitus in my deaf ear. How can that happen? If I can’t hear anything in that ear, how can I have tinnitus??? My ENT says tinnitus in the bad ear is very common in cases like mine.
And for a while after the sudden hearing loss, I would have very bizarre tinnitus. Some sounded like church bells ringing, also a buzzing popping noise, and all sorts of various and assorted screeching, ticking, wailing, and moaning.
J.
I had roughly the same thing happen when I was 20ish. Complete hearing loss in one ear for several days. Nowhere near the balance loss you had, just a small drift in one direction. Luckily I was still under military dependent medical coverage, so I had every test imaginable. Oh, and very loud tinnitus in that ear, mild in the other.
It settled down to a 50 decibel loss in one ear plus the mild balance issue.
General consensus among the doctors was a probably inner ear virus infection.
If you had continous severe vertigo you have my sympathies. I have had them twice, as a reaction to pain meds. Vertigo is a whole nother level of “dizzy”, where you feel like you are gonna fall towards the ceiling while the room spins and you choke on your own vomit. If you haven’t had it, I don’t think you can honestly imagine how bad it is.
Last time I had it I told the SO that if I had to live like that I’d seriously consider commiting suicide.
Well, there’s the violent spinning, the dizzyness, and the light-headedness. Which of these do you call vertigo?
The violent spinning happened a lot on the first day. It also occurred for months afterwards, if I got into certain positions. 9 months after I lost my hearing, if I turned onto my right side when I was laying down, I would get the violent spins. The fortunate thing about the violent spins is that they subsided after 30 - 60 seconds. I also was eventually able to train myself out of the violent spins, but it was a truly miserable process.
The dizzyness was similar to the feeling of standing up too quickly, but unfortunately, this was not self-limiting. It could go on for a long time. Sitting perfectly still was the only thing that seemed to help it subside. I would have “bad days” and “good days” regarding the dizzyness.
The light-headedness was just a generally unpleasant “floating” feeling. This was less severe than the dizzyness. Staying still also seemed to relieve this one.
The violent spinning I could attribute to specific causes, primarily my movement or my position. The dizzyness and light-headedness didn’t seem to have a proximate cause. They just happened, and stayed around as long as they wanted.
That’s not my experience of it, but maybe I’ve just never had it that bad. I would have a hard time describing it, but “gonna fall toward the ceiling” is pretty accurate.
All of the above, although I never really liked swimming, so I don’t really do that.
I’ve had a lot of balance therapy, where they try to re-integrate your “visual-vestibular system”. This includes eye-hand tasks combined with soft platforms, unstable platforms, or moving frames of reference.
I’m not sure how much good the therapy did. I think getting out and walking around was as effective as the therapy.
As to what I still CAN’T do? On bad days, there are still positions that I can’t stay in for long without getting dizzy. Bending my head back and looking up for anything more than 1 - 2 seconds can be a problem for me. There’ve been times in the last 12 months where bending over was a problem, but that seems to be much better now.
I’ve MOSTLY worked out my issues with laying on my right side, though that was a pretty brutal process.
Even 9 months after onset, I would have violent spinning if I tried to lay on my right side. My ENT and I talked about it. Could it be Benign Positional Vertigo? (A syndrome where some crystals in your ears are misaligned.) She tested me for this and concluded no. She concluded that I was just unused to being in that position, since I had avoided it since the onset.
The solution: start putting yourself in that position. This was pretty horrible. For 2 solid months, 4 times a day I would lay on the floor, then turn on my right side, wait until the spinning came, then went away. It would come after 10 - 30 seconds, and last 30 - 60 seconds or more. Doesn’t sound like a long time, but when it’s happening, it feels like a lot longer.
Then I would lift my head and move it from facing to my left, to facing to my right. This was actually the worst. Imagine the worst, and sickest your head has ever felt. That’s what my head felt like as I moved it from left to right. As I reached the right, most times I couldn’t even hold my head up anymore. I called this part “my misery”, because it was about the worst I had ever felt. The only redeeming part is that it would only last for 4 seconds. I very quickly got in the habit of counting 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 out loud to distract myself from the feeling.
So I would do 4 “barrel rolls” like this at a sitting (a “laying”? ). When I was done, I would crawl back up into my chair and try not to move.
After doing this for 2 months, 4 times a day, 4 “rolls” per time, I had mostly overcome the spinning situation. Now, I can often roll onto my right side without any spinning. On rare occasions, it still hits, but I just ride it out.
When I had my first bout of Meniere’s, the situation was similar, though I could hear out of both ears. There was no way I could ride my bike. Taking an “up” escalator or elevator could be just fine or excrutiatingly difficult. Turning over in bed, sitting up in the morning was very difficult. And I was ping-ponging off the cube walls at work. When I had an infection and the ear drained, I couldn’t do anything but lie still and whimper. The same with vicodin.
Meniere’s still affects me, but not as often or as much. Except for drop attacks. They come out of nowhere and leave me in full faceplant position. This could make old age quite interesting/painful.
). When I was done, I would crawl back up into my chair and try not to move.