Acoustic Trauma Resulting in Tinnitus and Hearing Loss — Advice on Intratympanic Steroid Injections?

Hey,

I recently acquired tinnitus as well as high frequency hearing loss (and a couple other symptoms like fullness, etc) due to acoustic trauma about three weeks ago.

I've taken a seemingly reputable audiogram test online that showed I had moderate - moderate/severe hearing loss at 8 kHz, with the rest not being too bad. Music sounds flat and off to me as a result.

Luckily my tinnitus is not as bad as others on here, at least not yet. So the hearing loss is my main concern at the moment.

I've held off on a doctor visit but I've read a ton about these terrible issues. One of the reasons I've held off is it seems as though steroids are really the only treatment you're going to get from ENTs and the like. Unfortunately due to other health problems I've been dealing with for a while, I have next to no interest in touching oral steroids.

However, I've been doing some reading on the intratympanic injections and other than the delivery method sounding painful/unpleasant, they seem appealing.

Couple questions for all of you:

1) Does anyone know whether systemic steroid effects happen at all with these injections? Does it really stay concentrated mostly in the ear and spare the rest of your body by avoiding the bloodstream?

2) Has anyone had this done within the timeframe I'm looking at (3-4 weeks post trauma) and seen good results in regards to hearing loss?

3) Any other side effects that made it not worth it?

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

 

Welcome to the forum. I had a sudden sensorineural hearing loss SSHL about 18 months ago. It was not just losing hearing at high frequency but a total loss of word recognition plus other symptoms like loss of balance, vertigo, ear fullness, brain fog etc. So I first received oral Prednisone for 2 weeks, then 3 weekly injections plus 20 sessions of Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment. But nothing has helped in bringing my hearing back on the left ear. There is no side effect from the steroids for me except feeling hungry often. Lol. But having drug side effects is a personal thing. I am just lucky no side effect. It is not a guarantee that steroids will restore hearing. Best wishes. God bless.

 

Thanks for the response.

I feel for you, this has been hell for me given how much I valued my hearing before this, and more severe hearing loss than what I'm dealing with can't be easy at all.

I know steroids aren't close to a guarantee, but I want to throw everything at this in hopes that something might work and I won't regret not taking action.

I saw an ENT today but he wasn't interested in steroids at all. Didn't seem to think my -50 to -60 dB dip at 8 kHz was a big deal at all. Not sure what to make of this. He seemed pretty clueless. Told me it was probably genetic even though I told him this all happened after an acoustic trauma. Told me noise damage happens at 4 kHz (mine was -20 dB at 4 kHz) almost exclusively. Anyone know if you can have noise induced hearing loss at 8 kHz but not much at 4 kHz?

 

Find a new ENT. I was only at -35 dB at 6 kHz and they did 3 intratympanic injections. They tried oral steroids first, but it didn't do anything. The first two injections didn't do much either, but after the third my hearing went to 20 dB. It's still not 10 dB like my right ear, but I'll take the improvement.

Find an ENT that will not dismiss your hearing loss and that will give you intratympanic injections. They are worth it and not even that unpleasant as an experience. If you tell them you have sudden hearing loss they will fit you in within 48 hours usually.

 

@RadioKid722, thanks for the post. Yeah, I'm working on finding several new ENTs for next week to see if any of them would be willing to do this. Any improvement would be worth it at this point.

The only thing is that my hearing loss is bilateral, and it seems as though the injections are more common for unilateral hearing loss? Not sure they can do injections in both ears during the same treatment or not, it's hard to find info on this.

Did you only have injections in your one ear or both? I saw you said something about 7 shots in that other steroid thread so I'm just wondering.

 

@John Joseph, I only got the injections in my left ear. My right ear has normal hearing and no tinnitus. But my left ear has severe tinnitus so I'll take as many shots as they're willing to give to me.

 

Gotcha. I'm with you on that, if I can get them done and they end up working, I'll take however many they are willing to give. Still a work in progress right now, it seems many ENTs hold back on giving them out. Thought it would be easier with actual documented hearing loss on an audiogram and not just tinnitus.