'My ears just went pop'

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By Jane Elliott Health reporter, BBC News

'I felt embarrassed at first'

One minute the shouts of 100 excited children were ringing in her ears, the next all she could hear was a noise like rushing water.

The children were still shouting - but Yvonne Watts couldn't hear them.

The primary school head teacher, from Northamptonshire, was directing the end-of-year school play when she felt her ears went "pop".

While most hearing loss happens gradually, there are rare cases where people lose the sense very suddenly - and it can be a frightening and life-changing experience.

Life changing

Describing the experience Yvonne, 46, said: "When it first happened it was absolutely horrible, I lost my balance and was very sick, I couldn’t stand up for a few days.

"It was like a switch being turned on - and of course I hoped it would switch itself off again."

But it did not.

She saw her GP three times complaining of ear problems and was eventually referred to an audiologist who suspected her hearing loss, normally associated with the elderly, had not been triggered by the noisy children, but by a virus resulting in inflammation of her inner ear.

Yvonne permanently lost 80% of the hearing in one ear and 20% in the other and in addition now has tinnitus.

Sudden hearing loss is quite rare

She has to wear a hearing aid, but admits to growing her hair into a long bob at first so that the children at school did not notice.

"Then a little boy with hearing much worse than me, who also wore a hearing aid, joined the school," Yvonne explains. "So I said in assembly that there is somebody here in school who's got a hearing aid. I came out!"

"You feel a bit embarrassed at first with the aid, but then you just get on with life," she said.

"To be honest the tinnitus has been a big problem though."

"I did not think I could be affected by hearing loss. I thought it was something that happened when you got older. My father suffered hearing loss when he was in his 70s.

"I never thought hearing loss could happen this young, or that it could be caused by something such as a virus, which I never even knew I had."

Protect your ears

The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) says sudden hearing loss can be a psychologically traumatic experience, particularly if the loss is at a young age, severe and accompanied by tinnitus, or balance problems.

Yvonne copes well with her disability; if she can't hear what one of her pupils is saying she asks them to repeat it.

But she says the deafness and tinnitus have dented her confidence and admits she might not have applied to become a head teacher if she had already had the problems - she became partially deaf nine months after taking the post.

"I sometimes think my hearing is getting progressively worse. Longer term, I just hope that I keep the good ear or I certainly couldn’t do my job."

The RNID say that although cases of sudden hearing loss, like Yvonne's, are rare but that some are avoidable.

A spokesman said there have been cases of hearing loss because of poking things, such as cotton wool buds into the ear and prolonged exposure to loud music.

Other sudden hearing loss can be caused by meningitis - especially the type caused by bacteria, measles or mumps, loud blasts and more rarely sudden large changes in air pressure.

Angela King, an audiologist for the RNID, said that people should seek help as soon as they spot the problems, adding that not all sudden deafness has a bleak outcome.

"Sudden hearing loss such as Yvonne experienced is quite rare.

"And of course there is the case when people suddenly have their ear blocked up by wax. It can build up and then seem as if you have suddenly gone deaf.

"But if you go suddenly deaf you should go and see your GP because if it is a wax problem it can be easily sorted.

"People do not realise how easy it can be to damage the ear or the ear canal. You should avoid poking things in the ear if at all possible."