Sudden Hearing Loss

If you wake up one morning to find that you suddenly can barely hear the birds chirping outside your window or your kids fighting over their breakfast cereal, you may be experiencing SUDDEN  SENSORINEURAL  HEARING  LOSS (SSNHL), more commonly called Sudden Deafness. SSNHL is defined as a hearing loss in one ear that develops over 72 hours or less. In fact, one in three people with SSNHL wake up deaf in one ear. For the other SSNHL sufferers, the first sign of hearing loss is often a popping sound or a ringing in the ears.

This type of hearing loss is most common in people between the ages of 30 and 60 and is often accompanied by dizziness. Hearing returns in one-third of cases and slightly improves in another third. Unfortunately, one-third of people who experience SSNHL remain deaf in that ear.

Sudden hearing loss may be a sign of several serious ear conditions, including meniere's disease and acoustic neuroma. It may also signal autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED), an inflammatory ear condition in which the body's immune system goes amok and mistakenly attacks the cells in the inner ear. Often people with this condition will have other signs besides hearing loss, such as light-headedness, lack of coordination, tinnitus, or a feeling of fullness in the ear.

Sudden hearing loss may also point to such serious systemic disorders as multiple sclerosis, sickle cell anemia, bacterial or viral infection, lupus erythematosus, and cancer.

Here are two more reasons to quit smoking: smokers are 70% more likely to suffer hearing loss than non-smokers, and living with a smoker doubles your risk of hearing loss.