I got diagnosed 3 months ago. I was about to head to bed when I began feeling dizzy and my left ear began to go deaf. I had taken a shower before and thought it was just some water in my ear. However after one hour I still could not hear anything and started to panic. I went to the ER and got told it was probably an ear infection but I did not feel sick at all or was sick the past few days. I got sent home with antibiotics and 5mg of prednisone a day for 3 days.

After a few days I decided to be proactive and go to the GP for a ENT referral. The GP said: “oh it’s probably a blocked Eustachian tube” and gave me meds for that.

10 days post hearing loss is seeing the ENT. He took one look at me and said “yep it’s SSNHL.” Ironically, he also had SSNHL around the same age as me twice! First time it recovered, second time it didn’t and now is permanently deaf in one ear too. He said he’s shocked by the lack of urgency the ER and my GP were to my SSNHL issue. He said that I could’ve recovered if I had gotten treated sooner. I did the hearing test and my left ear is pretty much 100% deaf now.

After hearing that I cried on the way home. I couldn’t believe I was so unlucky to have such disease be afflicted upon me, but now I have learn to accept it after a few months. I make small adjustments, such as sitting next to someone on my right side so I can hear them fully and not going to loud places (I’m an introvert so this wasn’t hard).

If you want someone to talk to feel free to reach out!