Hi all - I have been enjoying reading this forum for a couple of weeks and thought I might share my experience with sudden deafness.
In about Sept 09 things were going pretty badly with me. I woke up one morning feeling terrible and was considering not going to work when my Dad called to let me know that my grandmother had passed away the night prior. I jumped in the car and headed off to be with my family which is about a 5 hour drive from my home. In hindsight I think I was pretty sick with something but I guess some adrenaline meant I just pushed through it.
I can’t exactly recall when but shortly after I remember noticing my ears felt plugged up and I couldn’t hear well and the ringing in my ears seemed extremely loud when I went to bed at night. I didn’t pay too much attention - things weren’t going well for me at the time and work was particularly stressful so I carried on. It wasn’t until I missed the discussion around a fairly serious health and safety incident in the department I manage that I finally went to a local hearing clinic that I had used to have ear wax removed via suction in the past.
They checked my ears and the wax wasn’t terribly bad. The nurse tested my hearing and it wasn’t good. I had lost about 30db bilaterally (based on a audiogram I had done their previously). I was referred to the hospital ENT that day. After various scans tests etc they put me on steriods for about a month. Potentially the worst month of my life. I couldn’t sit still my brain seemed to be racing and I couldn’t sleep (not to mention the weight gain). It would have been worth it if my hearing came back but sadly it didn’t and they weren’t able to determine a cause. I was advised to see an audiologist.
I was very pleased to find out that in NZ there is some funding to help people get hearing aids if it is to enable them to stay employed. Unfortunately the waiting list for the funding was about 2 years! After a concerted effort to plead my case via a stream of letter writing I was able to get some urgent funding.
About two weeks ago I was fitted with Siemens Pure 700 RIC. Wow have to say I am loving being back in the land of the hearing. Without my hearing aids life was pretty hard - I hadn’t developed any lip reading skills and I found that the effort and concentration required to hear people in a whole day of meetings often left me asleep on the couch by 6pm. It was also kind of like working every day with a hangover - I wasn’t quite all there.
Because I haven’t got a ski slope audiogram I haven’t had the feedback issues others have noted with the Pure. I am also picking up my Tek at the end of next week - really looking forward to that!
Anyway please excuse my rambling - I really just wanted to say that I never expected to need hearing aids at 26, but this forum has made it far easier to understand a whole lot of things!