Is my boyfriend deaf for life?

Factual Questions
1

I’m not asking for medical advice - he’s seen several doctors and is waiting to hear about an appointment with an ENT. He’s going absolutely batshit about it, though, especially since his hearing is very important for his work and the doctors haven’t really been telling him much about what might be wrong or what the potential prognosis is. I was hoping to get some answers on what sort of things to be ready to hear and what we should be ready to answer and some anecdotes about other people this has happened to.

He had a strep infection for at least two or three weeks that spread to his ears. It was in his ears for at least a week and got really bad, to the point where his balance was affected and he couldn’t really hear at all. Before that, he’d been to see an RN at a CVS clinic and gotten some antibiotics, but he missed a few doses. When his ears got so bad (two weeks ago) he went to Doctor’s Care and got some more antibiotics that didn’t help him much. A week after that he went to the local reduced price clinic and got a different (third) set of antibiotics that worked and his infection was gone by Sunday.

His hearing, on the other hand, has not improved at all in one ear. It’s now been a week since the infection has gone, but his hearing has not cleared up at all although the dizziness and balance issues went away. There’s no longer any pain at all and the doctor confirmed this past Wednesday that the infection has gone and said he should see a specialist, but has not called back with appointment information as agreed yet.

His ear feels full and there’s a sense of pressure and an echo, but he doesn’t feel any movement or “swishing” feelings. Whenever he swallows, there’s a “pop” feel - it sounds wet, but there’s no relief of pressure. When he breathes hard, he feels like a membrane is distending and extending inside his ear. When he yawns, he often hears an air rushing sound. Sometimes when he uses a neti pot, the fullness feeling goes away for a little while and the echo is gone but the hearing does not improve. He has an overall reduction of volume, not a loss of highs or lows or any specific frequency.

He’s sure something has happened to give him permanent hearing loss, and of course he’s been researching stuff that’s gotten him absolutely terrified. We got an otoscope to fool around with and I took a look and have no idea what I’m looking at, but it seems like his bad ear has something red in it past the eardrum (but his eardrums are differently oriented from each other so I can’t tell if I’m just seeing something through one that I can’t see through the other.) He’s afraid he’s blown out the round window or something, which would obviously be a problem. The doctor this time didn’t really tell him anything at all about what she saw in his eardrum, but we assume that if there were a perforation she would have told him.

So - harmless and he just has to wait, or what? Is it common after a really serious infection to have lingering hearing loss that takes a while to go away? (I’ve had plenty of ear infections, but never one that affected my balance.) Obviously he’s uninsured and each of these doctor’s visits has been a real strain on his finances, and god knows what the ENT is going to charge - we want to make sure we get the most out of a visit to a specialist, so we want to be as informed as possible.

2

If he hears an “air rushing sound” in that ear, that implies that there is no (or at least minimal) nerve damage. Sounds to me (sorry) that he still has fluid in his inner ear - it can take many months for that to drain completely.

BTW, I am not a doctor, but I have had an ear infection that took a long time to resolve completely.

3

May take up to six weeks for his ears to get back to normal but permanent hearing loss from these infections is rare. This is just from what I read during my recent ear episode.

One moring about 8 months ago I woke up feeling dizzy, my head was spinning like I laid down when I was really drunk. I sat up in bed and immediately thought I was going to throw up. I could barely balance enough to walk. The left side of my face was numb, including the left side of my tongue.

So I thought I had had a stroke and off to the hospital we go. After a CAT and MIR and all blood work came back fine I was diagnosed with Labrinthitis.

At no time were my ears plugged up or any indication of an ear infection found, other than an occational sharp pain in the left ear. The numbness was due to a nerve that gets pinched by swelling inside the ear.

It took maybe 3 or 4 weeks before my balance was slowly, fully restored. The numbness from the pinched nerve slowly faded over months but has never completely went away. I still get a funny tingle on that side of my tongue sometimes.

So listen to the doctors. My ear took a long time to heal.

4

I have no medical background. This is not medical advice. This is what my ENT told me about some hearing problems that I had some years back:

Some temporary hearing problems can be caused by throat irritation. The reason:

a) Air in the middle ear is constantly being absorbed by the surrounding tissue.
b) This causes a pressure imbablance that is equalized when we swallow.
c) The Eustachian tube, which connects the throat to the middle ear, is normally closed, but opens when we swallow, equalizing the pressure.
d) When you have throat irritations, for whatever reason (allergy, infection, etc.), this can interfere with the normal opening, thus causing reduced pressure in the ear.

That is when it sounds like your ears are all “stopped up.” Actually, it’s just the opposite, there are fewer air molecules in your middle ear.

So. . . bottom line, since the infection started in the throat, it could be that that is the reason for the hearing problems.

And maybe not.

5

When I was an adolescent I suffered from outer ear infections, usually every other summer, mostly caused from swimming in polluted lakes and rivers.

Around 25 I had an infection that was sever enough to spread “under” the ear drum to my inner ear. The doctor at the time was able to rid me of the middle ear infection but did not recognize that the inner ear had filled with fluid.

After several months of almost complete deafness in my right ear I was sent to a specialist who took an x-ray and saw the mass in the inner ear.

Simply puncturing the ear drum and letting it drain fixed the problem. My hearing now is only slightly less than before the operation.

Understand this was not in a community with readily available health care so the “cure” was a bit crude.