I had something happen this week that was a bit odd/discomforting/confusing/slightly worrisome – I lost most of the hearing in my left ear for a couple days.
On Monday I had just come home from taking one of my girls to dance, and within a few minutes I had lost about 70-80% of the hearing in my left ear. It was all of a sudden. It was as if I had put an earplug in that ear (a good one).
To be honest I have had that happen before, but not to this extreme, and it usually gets better in less than an hour. So, I decided to just ignore it. As I went to bed that night I was a bit weirded out because it “felt” odd. It didn’t hurt, but the fact I couldn’t really hear anything with it made things feel weird.
The next morning I woke up and still couldn’t really hear anything from that ear. Still no pain though. I put in my earbuds and made breakfast like I do every morning, and I could hear the music without much issue. The music didn’t sound that soft on the left side like I would have expected. So, I thought things were getting better. At breakfast with the kids though it was still as if I had an earplug in that ear.
Off to school, and again I noticed that with the headphones in my motorcycle helmet I didn’t notice any issue, but once I was at school things really started acting extra weird.
During class I decided to preform experiments (no surprise there) to see what I could and couldn’t hear. So, I proceeded to plug my good ear and see what I could hear. I noticed right away that I couldn’t hear any of my students talking. I would walk around the classroom while they were doing their lab and I could hear them talking, then I would plug my right ear and I could see their lips moving, but I couldn’t hear any of the words. BUT I could hear other things like the metal masses banging into each other and the clicking of the motion detectors. What I noticed was that the higher pitches I could hear just fine, but the lower pitches I couldn’t hear at all. Still no pain though.
The odd things was that I could hear most low frequencies with the headphones with my left, but not to the same degree as I could with my right ear, but still more frequencies than with general life (no headphones).
That continued through the rest of the day. It never got better nor worse. So, of course I got online and looked things up and it ranged from allergies (which I have, but get shots for) to tumors. I decided to try calling an audiologist I used to go to church with, but didn’t get ahold of her. So, went to bed and hoped things would be better the next day.
Wednesday – woke up and things seemed a little better. And through the day things got better. It was less muffled as the day went on and it switched to a constant, single tone that I could hear in that ear, but not always. Still no pain, but I was happy that I could hear more.
Thursday – even better. I was thinking about calling a doctor to get checked out, but I was thinking to myself, “Nah, things are getting better.” By the end of the day I would say I was at 90%.
Friday (today) – I think I am back to 98%. There is still a slight “muffle” but it is all but unnoticeable. So, I am going to chalk it up to something very weird happening and now it has passed. Since there was never any pain I don’t think it was an ear infection. There is a chance it was just an allergy related thing or even a very odd reaction to the allergy shot I got Monday afternoon. I somewhat doubt that since after 3 year I would have thought I would have had a reaction before, but since I have been very stable, and on the same dosage for almost 2 years now, I don’t think that was it. But I will mention it to them the next time I go in and to my allergist when I meet with him in a couple weeks. Who knows maybe it was something to do with the shot.
Still, what this situation did do to me this week was make me appreciate hearing. I love hearing things, people, music, life! I did not (and do not) want to lose my hearing. I love listening to music so much, and hearing my kids talk to me, and hearing my youngest read to me, and my wife telling me how much she loves me. I don’t want to lose that. I pray I never will (but I probably will someday as I get older, but hopefully that is far off and I can get help for it then).