I am writing this to give an insight to people who are
searching about this term – “Sensorineural Hearing Loss”. My wife was carrying
our kid and it was her 5th month. One day she woke up and she was
not able to hear properly in one ear. We thought it was some random issues because
of some hormonal imbalance and would get cleared in a day’s time. But that
didn’t happen and the state just continued. We went to consult to a doctor in
Telerad (RxDx) Bangalore. She did some initial checkups, cleared some wax from
that ear and asked us to take a hearing test. We took the hearing test. During
the test, she was asked to be inside a sound proof room with an earphone and
they would be playing sounds of varying frequencies and she had to press some
button when each sound stops. This would help them in identifying how much
percentage of hearing got affected. After the test, the report said that, it
was a case of Sensorineural Hearing Loss.
This is a case of sudden hearing loss which can happen to
anyone when you wake up from bed on some day. There would not be any symptoms
of this disease till the very previous day. And there could be 100s of reasons
for this such as exposing the ears to heavy/loud voice, virus infection,
genetic etc. As per the report, she had lost 35 – 40% of hearing in one ear.
We went back to the doctor and showed this report. She asked
us to take steroid tablets orally and informed that, since it happened all of a
sudden, there could be some chance that it would rectify. We informed the doctor
that she is carrying and it’s her 5th month and enquired if there
are any issues to take steroid tablets during this stage. She consulted with
our gynecologist (same hospital) and informed that there are no issues.
We decided to take some second opinion on this and consulted
with top Veteran ENTs in Kerala. As per them, it’s not advisable to have
steroids orally during pregnancy. Meantime, we went to Brookfields hospital,
based on my friend’s referral. We consulted ENT
Dr. Santosh over
there. We didn't tell him that, we were
there for a second opinion. He did some initial examination and later did some
tests with a Tuning Fork. Vibrated Tuning fork is placed near her both ears and
the central portion of the head and she had to raise her finger when the sound
stops. Within couple of minutes, he told us that, it’s a case of Sensorineural
Hearing Loss (without hearing test) and asked us to take the test for a
confirmation. That time, we told that we came for a second opinion and showed
him the test report and the other doctor’s suggestion of having Steroid
tablets.
He told us that, he is also not in favor of having it
orally. Also explained the doctor’s situation – “Since she is carrying, there
is lot of limitation for a doctor as they can’t do most of the tests to find
the root cause of the issue. What he can do is trying out some options blindly
and see, if it’s working or not. Since it was a sudden hearing loss, there are
high chances if we can do something at the earliest.”
He explained that, she would still be able to hear through
the other ear and partially through this ear. But the problem would be when
someone calls from the side of the infected ear, the sound will reach the other
ear first and she would turn the other side and later turns the actual side.
Either accept the fact and forget it or do a last try.
He suggested taking a steroid injection directly into the
ear, which will by-pass the blood and directly will affect the affected portion
only. Chances of risk are comparatively less than 30% compared to an oral
intake.
We came back and checked with other ENT doctors in Kerala.
They also suggested it as a better option. We discussed about the pros and cons
of taking that (all discussions happened because she was carrying that time and
there is an amount of risk). Finally we decided to take that last try, since we
were not ready to accept that permanent loss and didn’t want to repent later
that, we could have tried that at least. So we fixed the injection date with
the doctor for the very next day.
Doctor gave her the injection in the ear after having some
local anesthesia. The procedure took around 3 hours (Only 1 minute for the
injection). Doctor had informed that, he tried this injection in 7 patients and
all 7 got their hearing back to normal the very next day. In our case also, the
same thing happened and her hearing is back to normal. Now we are parents of a
1 month old baby boy. Both mom and the baby are doing great. We are thankful to
God and Dr. Santosh.
Wanted to write this because, it can happen to anyone any
time and people shouldn't wait to take the action for a long time. We also realized
that hearing/seeing etc. is a big luxury to us.
