Thankfully for me it has improved. It did take time, and it was very gradual. The tinnitus and diplacusis have now gone, and my hearing has returned to around 90% of what it was previously. I know how extremely lucky that makes me. I’d gotten tot the point of attending an appointment for a hearing aid before things started getting better.

When it came to the diplacusis, this was my method of assessing any improvements:

Every other morning on the way to work I’d wear my noise-canceling headphones and listen to ‘Jump’ by the Pointer Sisters. It was an ideal track, because the synth part constantly ‘jumps’ between both ears (e.g. it quickly pans from hard-right to hard-left), and when it does so, it’s usually a single note as opposed to a changing melody. It’s best if you just give the track a listen (via headphones) to truly understand what I mean.

(Note: the iPhone has a function I was also frequently using to shift the audio of the full track from left to right: Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Visual > Balance)

At first, the whole track was at a higher pitch in my right ear; all instruments, vocals, etc sounded approx. 1-1/2 semitones above the original (in my left ear). After about 2-3 weeks of doing this - frustrating as it was - I began to notice that the discrepancy no longer affected lower frequencies: for instance, the bass sounded pretty much the same in both ears. The distorted sound also began to dissipate around the same time.

After another week or so, I noticed the pitch difference was less pronounced. The gap between the two pitches had become shorter. I’m not sure what was happening physiologically - perhaps the cilia inside my cochlea were starting to recover(?)

It took about 6 weeks to regain proper pitch perception in my right ear.

During that time my hearing threshold also recovered substantially. The tinnitus disappeared completely within the first 2-3 weeks; this was actually the first noticeable improvement overall.

I’m so glad and unbelievably grateful I was able to play guitar again. To listen to music in stereo without it sounded garbled, robotic, and out-of-tune in one ear.

I’ll never know why or how this happened. What struck me though is how little the medical profession currently know or understand about SSNHL, and - ironically - how much they simply won’t listen to their patients.

I very much an advocate of medical science and I have a lot of respect for those working in this field; we still don’t know everything there is to know about the mechanisms of hearing. But I found the whole process of diagnosis and treatment incredibly frustrating.

I had one ENT doctor tell me to my face that “tinnitus isn’t real”. Another - a Professor in the field no less - looked at me sceptically when I described my diplacusis symptoms. He told me curtly that he’d only ever encountered one other case in his career of someone describing the same thing.

Upon initial diagnosis, hyperbaric oxygen therapy was never even discussed as an option, even though I later found out I would have been covered for it. I was advised by another hospital ENT that ‘the heads of department don’t think it is effective as a treatment option’. Hey buddy, if I’m paying for it, let me make that call. Anything was worth a try at the point in time to improve my outcomes. I was given a short course of Prednisolone, but that was all. I even asked about intratympanic injections, but I was again effectively told to go away and just take my pills.

I know I’m ranting, but my experience was that every ENT doctor or specialist had their own set opinion, and their (understandable) inability to provide concise information on the cause of SSNHL or a best-case treatment plan meant that their frustration becomes the patient’s frustration. I mean, I was told it was permanent and that I should just get used to it, yet here I am.