What should I do if I suffer a sudden hearing loss?

What should I do if I suffer a sudden hearing loss?

Sudden hearing loss is a medical emergency and you should immediately head to the emergency room or to your audiologists to be evaluated. Many times if you're seen quickly you can be treated and preserve your hearing. If you delay, sometimes the hearing loss is irreversible and can't be improved. Sudden hearing loss is a very difficult diagnosis to make. Patients are often curious as to why they've had this hearing loss and they are usually worried that they have a tumor or something dramatic happening to them. Most commonly the hearing loss is idiopathic, which means that there's no real answer to why the hearing loss occurred. Theories on why patients have sudden hearing loss is that there's a vascular abnormality, or similar to a stroke for the brain but the ear its self is affected where an artery may become blocked or go into spasm and cause a lack of oxygen in the ear its self, and the hearing is lost in that manner. The other common theory is that there's some kind of viral infection. Just like a viral infection affects a nose, that it affects the ear primarily and that the hearing is lost in that manner. So making a differentiation in between the two is important. Seeing a physician immediately will help to preserve your hearing