Has anyone experienced sudden hearing loss due to a virus?

several weeks ago, i suddenly lost hearing in my left ear, i was treated with steroids but no change. I have now been diagnosed with one sided deafness and was told i have little to no chance of recovering any hearing. All of this was due to a virus that attaced my inner ear. Has anyone experienced this, and had any luck with chinease herbs? I would be happy with any hearing. thank you

I treat patients who have SSNHL (sudden sensorineural hearing loss) which is almost always a virus when it affects one ear. The steroid treatment was correct and is the only thing proven to help (only sometimes). Patients who have had this condition have had their inner ear studies after their death and it has shown that the organ of hearing (the cochlia) has experienced a large amount of cell death. This means that the nerve to hear is still there, but there is no way to receive sound. An analogy is that the microphone is broken, but the wire (nerve) and computer (brain) still work.

So, if you have not recovered your hearing, the chances are that you will not. The most important thing for you to do at this point is PROTECT YOUR GOOD EAR. This means you should avoid noisy situations and see a specialist immediately if you have any hearing changes or pain in that ear. Also, you should probably have a hearing test every year to make sure you are not slowly losing your hearing in that ear.

There are work-around treatments for the deaf ear, if it is bothering you a great deal. One type is a special hearing aid that transmits sound from the deaf side to the hearing side (CROS) and another is a bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA). The latter does the same as the former, but with greater fidelity since it transmits sound to the working cochlia using your skull.

Most people deaf in one ear adapt and do not require any assistive devices.

There are no medications or treatments that can bring a dead inner ear back to life, just as there is no way to bring a dead retina back to life. There are substitutes (cochlear implant) for when you lose hearing in BOTH ears, but the sound on these is very poor and unusable when you have a good ear (your brain will ignore the sound as it is similar to static).

It is ok to mourn the loss of hearing in one ear...it is a handicap that you will have. Give yourself time to adapt to it and then decide if you want to pursue any work-arounds. If you do, get in touch with an otolaryngologist (ENT) in your area.

Best of luck!