I all of a sudden lost my hearing in my left ear. right now it feels like I'm hearing at 50% kind of like when you have a severe cold. What could be the cause of this? I didn't sustain any trauma just now. How long should I wait it out before seeing a doctor for something like this?
Thanks ATOT.
GO TO A DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY.
Trust me, just do it. Your hearing is too vital to ignore. It may be something minor like wax, congestion, etc. But it could be hearing loss that can be halted or reversible if treated within the first couple days. In many cases within a couple days of hearing loss steroids can be injected into the ear with a relatively high success rate of halting, even reversing, hearing loss. They don't know why but tympanic injections have shown to be effective if administered promptly--oral ones, not so much. They can help but their effectiveness has shown to be much lower.
Why should you trust me? Because I had a very rare ear disorder which resulted in years of reading medical journals and have lost hearing in an ear. It is well documented people often ignore acute hearing loss and report it too late to their physician.
I had SCDS (superior canal dehiscence syndrome) which took years to diagnose. I went through the entire gamut of tests and suggestions--Eustachian Tube Dysfunction (EDT), cranial nerve compression (I was a good candidate as I have Trigeminal Neuralgia), Meniere's disease, etc. As SCDS is exceedingly rare and difficult to diagnose I saw a lot of specialists and had to do a lot of reading. Furthermore 4 days after my SCDS repair I lost hearing in my affected ear. It diminished over a 24-36 hour period. My surgeon was on vacation and long story short they missed the window of injections. They administered high doses of prednisone but that did not work. As a last ditch effort they tried tympanic injections and it helped a little, but it was really too late.
You probably don't have anything to be concerned with. But just like your sight don't screw with your hearing. So immediately get it checked on. Time is essential so don't book a visit a couple days out. See a physician immediately, preferably an Otolaryngologist immediately to begin treatment, if necessary. That or he may pull a Qtip head or roach from your ear. The worse that can happen is they say it was a false alarm, best case scenario is you save your hearing.
Best of luck.