I’ve been struggling with fluctuating hearing issues for about 3 years now.
I was referred to ENT because I was experiencing issues with taste and smell, and while I was there, I realised that I could mention the hearing difficulties and hopefully, get some guidance.
The Doctor was awesome! He arranged for a hearing test to be done, he went through the results with me soon afterwards, and then he explained the next steps.
He referred me to Neurology. He felt that my external hearing, which is what the hearing test measured, was fine and that the actual issue was internal.
I got seen by Neuro-Otology about six months later, but the follow-up wasn’t possible until a year later. The follow-up didn’t feel beneficial as there was no conclusion. In February 2025, I was told that the next steps were to ask the GP to refer me to an audiologist.
I was seen by an audiologist at Specsavers. She was great. She was friendly, approachable and thorough, but again, there was no conclusion.
In October, I had an appointment with an audiologist, which was probably the best appointment I’ve ever had!
Within ten minutes, I felt like I finally understood what had happened, what wasn’t done, why it wasn’t done and more. This is some of what she explained:
- There’s some nerve damage
- It’s worse than what it should be at my age
- There seems to be a post-COVID impact
- She has seen patients with hearing issues that have come about after they caught COVID, had the vaccine or since they developed Long COVID (LC)
- She went through the various test results and explained why nobody has come to any conclusion!
- The auditory processing test showed there are some problems, especially when there’s competing noise, i.e. sound from more than one source, but not enough to diagnose me with Auditory Processing Disorder
- Fatigue and brain fog will impact the sound that’s being processed at a speed
- The results from the hearing tests vary, which confirms that the hearing is fluctuating
- Hearing aids are an appropriate solution for a consistent issue, not one that fluctuates
- This issue is tricky to fix, and there isn’t one solution that will address the issues because it’s multifactorial
- Strategies to help me manage
- If I’m fatigued, get away from the situation and give my ears a break
- If I’m watching something and someone needs to say something, someone should press pause and then talk
- Don’t talk from different rooms
- When using the phone, listen through loudspeaker or use headphones, to avoid putting pressure on one ear and causing fatigue on one side
- Sound frequencies are squashed on the phone, and this directly impacts me because of the ones that I struggle with
- Learn basic lip-reading to help fill any gaps
- She’ll send me a communication pack, which I should use to highlight the bits that are relevant to me and then share that with my nearest and dearest to make things easier
A bit of information about sound frequencies being squashed on the phone
A bit of information about COVID and hearing
I used to feel irritated by the gifts that I kept getting from LC, but this conversation has made me feel empowered. I have a better grasp of what’s going on, and I’m happy that she had the ability and empathy to connect what’s happened so far and help me make sense of it.
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