I think my hearing is improving in my more heavily affected ear. The audiogram I had a month after the incident showed some mild high-frequency loss. It was still well within the normal range, and I did not notice it in daily life. However, around month three, I used cuff-style earbuds for a few months, and when I listened to a track with birds and a river, I could hear the river in my left ear but not the birds, and the sound was not as crisp as in the right ear.
I recently put the earbuds back in after about two months of not using them, and now I can hear both the birds and the river in my left ear, and the sound is almost as clear as in the right ear. The soreness and feeling of fullness I used to have in my left ear have nearly resolved. They are now only intermittent and much milder than before.
I know there is a lot of advice on this board to avoid earbuds and headphones, especially after acoustic trauma, but I have found them indispensable. I use one pair that hangs on my ear like a small hook and another cuff-style pair, so nothing goes directly into my ear canal and nothing completely covers my ear. That way, there is still airflow and ambient sound getting in. I keep the volume set at 1, the absolute lowest setting. If my phone could go lower, I would set it even lower than that.
