hello and welcome to health care magic, I am Dr Sriram Nathan, an ENT surgeon who has seen thousands of cases of hearing loss and I can very well understand your concern regarding your problem. What you experienced is called a sudden sensorineural hearing loss which in my practice is common. I have seen at least one to two cases in a month. Having said this you must realise that the treatment for this is an emergency and has to be initiated as soon as possible and it involves a cocktail of medications ranging from steroids, plasma expanders, aspirin, anti viral and multivitamins. Most of the cases however in spite of the vigorous treatment does not respond to the same and even I have seen only partial recovery in very few of my patients. Additionally you can see that since we use a lot of non specific medications frankly it is rare to find the cause of hearing loss in majority of cases although we do a battery of investigations ranging from blood tests to scans. Again, this whole exercise is just to protect the other normal ear and most of us doctors realize that the cause and prognosis is bleak in the affected ear. Theoritically though the common causes are viral, vascular, medicinal, infections to name a few. This can usually be ruled out but like I mentioned before it is rare to find the cause and also to expect a recovery. Now you need to realise that the clinicians aim now is not to find a cause but to make sure or at least try to make sure that the other ear does not get affected and also the affected ear gets good work up. These are the points for you to ponder: - the nerves once they become weak, it is undertood that the recovery is either not possible and of course never complete but make sure you go for regular audiometry examination for routine follow up. This helps your doctor to monitor your progress and also intervene if the loss suddenly worsens - take a healthy diet with lots of vegetables and fruits to ensure no further loss and to protect the other ear - keep your sugar and pressure under control - take a multivitamin tablet like zincovit and also include neuroprotectors like ginkgo biloba. Your doctor will know about this - before you take any medication, always consult your ENT - If the loss is very severe you must consider a hearing aid; this will also make sure your nerves are protected from further loss Hope this helps and if you have any other doubts you can ask me but do not stress and think much about the cause. You may spend a lot of time and money in an exercise of futility. regards Dr Sriram Nathan

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hello again, you are welcome take care regards Dr Sriram Nathan

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