Sudden unilateral hearing losses need more tests than just an audiogram. If your audi isn’t taking this seriously, find another one that is.
This part is something you need to tell them.
Not hearing pure tones indicate complicated version, from what I’ve gathered so far. In my case, where I hear brrrr instead of ummm sounds for low frequency suspects are cochlear dead regions, damaged nerve, or acoustic neuroma on the nerve. No one took my loss seriously 5 years ago when it happened, only 3 months ago when I started my trial for new aids, and started digging a lot, I got to some conclusions, and I’m on the quest to find out what exactly is damaged. In order to understand what exactly can I get from HAs and if there is any adjustment that could be made to help.
All speech I get on that ear has distortion in it, some letters less than others but it’s there.
For an illustration of that process of realisation, check my featured topic from my profile the one with journey in the title.
But, your loss is different, so you’ll need to figure out your case independently.
We might help you to understand a bit, but good audi who explains everything is the best source. Now I know how bad one I had back then.
You can try to remember what they said to you when they explained you your results, we can try to fill in the gaps.
If they didn’t explain whys, then you need to dig up, but for that you need to understand your results. Share them with us. The one in profile is called pure tone audiogram (threshold).
Then there is tympanogram, wrs (word recognition score) in quiet and noise, sentence comprehension in quiet and noise (quickSIN could be used).
They are used to help you understand what you have.
However if you don’t know the cause (like, very loud noise, ototoxic drugs and similar), then MRI to check the nerves might also be needed.
How is your balance?
All those are needed to understand the expectations from your hearing and if and how much could HAs help.
Luckily, majority of speech happens below your loss.
Also if tinnitus isn’t of some disturbing type (like beeeps) but more like white noise, your brain will get used to it once you get back in the daily routine and you won’t notice it that much.
First few months are the hardest. What might help you is to write down your thoughts and findings throughout the day and share what more you can’t hear and you could previously.
For example, if the conclusion is that it’s only tinnitus that disturbs you, you will be better armed to find best aids to help you with that. But if you notice that speaking with more than one person and especially with background noise (and of which type) is giving you trouble, then you will know to focus on aids that can work with high frequency loss and have good noise cancelling management.
But you did yourself a huge favour by coming here. By reading and searching for old posts you’ll definitely have more precise questions to ask audi or Google to help you find the answers and adjust to your new situation.
Also, check dr cliff aud on Youtube, and here’s the best practices fitting protocol for hearing aids, which can help you gather terms to navigate this new scenery.
best practices summarised by dr cliff
Welcome here and remember - don’t forget to breathe and go day by day. You probably can’t impact the damage but with knowledge you can get the best out of it. It is tough journey you were thrown into. It is easier when you’re not alone, and with that we certainly can help