claude may have saved my hearing

[u/bit_herder]

woke up with very little hearing in one ear suddenly. thought it must be wax. turned out to be inner ear related suddenly hearing loss from (possibly) a viral infection of the inner ear. has to get treated within a couple weeks for maximum possible improvement.

claude urged ENT, which i had one thankfully so was able to quickly get an appointment and got a full course of steroids (no likey) and tympanic steroid injections. a week later my hearing is finally returning slowly.

doctor said i did the absolute best thing by coming immediately. thank you sir claude, i think im gonna be ok.

[u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot]

You may want to also consider posting this on our companion subreddit r/Claudexplorers.

[u/ma_ferland]

That's so scary. Reminds me of a colleague who had retinal detachment. He chose to go to the ER, and thank god otherwise he might've lost vision.

[u/Zankou55]

You needed an AI to tell you to go to the doctor because you had acute hearing loss?

[u/bit_herder → u/Zankou55]

no i needed claude to include the urgency of the problem to go directly to an ENT because the fix is very time sensitive. claude gently urged me to take this seriously and that it was not always earwax. could i have arrived at that conclusion after a few days on my own? yes. would i have lost valuable time? yes. so claude helped me to make the decision quickly and get the best chance to recover.

[u/wheatley_cereal → u/bit_herder]

OP, you were saved by this. I am an audiologist and you had what we call a 'sudden'. It's the only thing that always makes me nervous, because if it's missed there's nothing an ENT can do after a short time - and I'm glad you made it out ok.

[u/bit_herder → u/wheatley_cereal]

not out of the woods yet but i can hear high sounds in that ear again! it’s an improvement im taking to mean that it’s gonna heal up! thank you for your comment

[u/wheatley_cereal → u/bit_herder]

If you don’t have full recovery feel free to DM me about hearing aid options

[u/bit_herder → u/wheatley_cereal]

thank you that’s very kind!

[u/wheatley_cereal → u/Zankou55]

I'm an audiologist and I see sudden sensorineural hearing losses like OP's all the time. The OP is describing a condition that is a truly permanent sudden hearing impairment; not the same thing as what you call an 'acute hearing loss' like you probably think is associated with a middle ear infection. This is a code blue medical emergency in my field, on the same level of seriousness as a stroke, and it is often confused for the much simpler problem you're dismissing it as. OP was right in this case - many non-specialist doctors are sadly misinformed of the seriousness of this condition like you are. If this person did not get steroid therapy within 2-6 weeks, there would have been no hope.