I am a long time hearing aid user with profound hearing loss at frequencies over 1000 Hrz. I have developed a number of coping strategies to manage including live transcription, cell phone captioning, lip reading and use of noise canceling headphones (Bose)
I also track my audiogram history over the past 30 years to monitor the decline. The audiogram shown in my profile is more or less unchanged for the past 10 years. Despite that stability, I have noticed small subtle changes (loss) like more reliance on captioning in situations I was able to manage without.
Recently (last 2-3 months) however I have begun to notice a much more dramatic change. All sound in both ears has become distorted, like a radio dial between stations or a broken speaker. I was never aware of Tinnitus before, but it is quite apparent now.
I visited my ENT who I have not seen for the past 5 years (I visit my audiologist annually) and shared by audiogram history including the one done 3 months ago and described what I am experiencing. I was concerned it might be the result of a viral infection (had a period of a lot of nasal mucus 4-5 weeks ago, now gone) or some other manifestation of SSHL.
His belief (without any further testing) was that I am getting near the end of the line and this is just a normal outcome of progressive loss at my stage. A CI was his recommendation.
I am unconvinced because of the rapid change and considering a second opinion including more testing (ABR and OAE?) to check. I am throwing this out to the group to see if anyone else has had similar experience. The distortion is now constant and very unnatural sounding. It is especially noticeable after wearing the headphones (sound volume limited) for an hour or more.
Thoughts?