by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A man explained:
I came across your blog post regarding LVAS and hearing loss, and was looking for assistance or more information.
I am a 48 year old with profound sensorineural hearing loss in both ears. I’ve worn aids for 10 years and had many medical and hearing specialist exams but no explanation of the cause. It keeps getting worse, but mysteriously seems to vary, becoming milder, or more severe, on a weekly basis. I’ve never been able to correlate it to any food or activity.
Recently, I took a vacation during which I paused my regular and typically strenuous aerobic and anaerobic exercise activities. That week, my hearing was much better. Upon return to my normal exhausting exercise, I’m having one of the worst hearing weeks ever. This clued me to the possible correlation between hearing loss and exercise. Your article is the only one I find tying the two together. Is there any treatment or test to verify if this is the cause?
The suggestion I fear is ‘give up exercise’. I play competitive tennis, and train extensively for it. It is a lifelong passion. Making that sacrifice would be a drastic step, but at least I’d like to understand if that could be an answer to a hearing problem that is now affecting my ability to earn a living and support my family.
This is not a well-known subject, so you may have to do your own experimenting. When you stopped exercising for a week and your hearing returned to whatever degree sounds like a positive correlation to me. In order to prove or disprove this theory, do the same thing again. Stop exercising for a week and see if the same thing happens. If so, you know that for you, at least, strenuous exercise negatively affects your hearing.
In order to find out why this is happening, I’d suggest you have an MRI or CT scan specifically looking to see whether you have Large [or Enlarged] Vestibular Aqueduct Syndrome (LVAS). Be sure to have them measure the vestibular aqueducts and give you the results in mm. Some doctors just eyeball them and say—yup, you got LVAS. That is not the way to do it.
As you read in the above-cited article, some people with LVAS lose hearing due to strenuous exercise. You may be one of these. If that is the case, don’t think you have to give up all exercise. What I’d suggest is give up strenuous exercise—where you really exert yourself—cut it down to moderate exercise for a week and see what happens to your ears. What you want to do is cut down the exertion in the exercise to below where it causes hearing loss. Once you find that point, then stay below it if you want to preserve your hearing.
Straining to run faster, lift more, etc. increases your internal body pressure, and this is what causes the problem if you have LVAS. Thus, exercise that doesn’t substantially increase your internal pressure should be OK.
Once you have tried the above and see what the results are, then you can decide whether you want to protect your ears (and to what level), or continue with competitive tennis (and at what level). Perhaps there is a happy medium that will meet both needs.
I am trying to do reaserch on noise induced hearing loss while exercising.I was just wondering if you happened to know if there is a greater possibility to have a loss of hearing while exercising while listening to musi then just regularly listening to music (i pod)? Any comments or places for me to look would be great thank you.
This is unbelievable that I came across this tonight. I have been searching and searching for information or anyone else who has experienced this. My husband suffers from significant hearing loss, complete loss in his left ear and significant loss in his right ear which he uses a hearing aid in. However the past 4 years he has had to give up triathalons and professional soccer refereeing because of the significant distortion and loss of hearing in his right(good)ear after the activity. He has had extensive testing by ENT”s, neurotologists, and audiologists who just shrug their shoulders and say “that makes no sense.” His initial symptoms all started with an extreme illness followed by a few months of vertigo off and on. Docs said Meniere’s Disease. Hearing loss/distortion began a few months later. The vertigo and all signs of dizziness have been absent approximately 2 1/2 years.The docs then said “it can’t be Meniere’s now.” Docs were surprised the hearing aid helped in the right ear but the benefit is fading fast. We have been contemplating cochlear implants, but my husband was concerned if he would still have an issue with hearing impairment after exercise. He has gained weight since giving up his exercise and very depressed. As a former soccer player, and extremely active person this is just NOT acceptable. Now the task begins to find a doc proficient in diagnosing either LVAS or the perilymphatic fistula you speak of. Regardless, even if both are ruled out, it least it’s a reminder to keep searching. I’ve been looking for ANY correlation and this is a good start. Thanks all for the information and posts.
Wow! This is amazing. I found this article because I recently lost hearing during two separate Bikram yoga workouts. It was only for a few minutes during the mid-point of the workout where I was bending my body in triangle pose (or shortly after).
Bikram can be a strenuous workout, however I’ve had other strenuous workouts in dance, biking, etc.
Perhaps my age 43, weight 141, sex female may also be influencing factors.
I recently experienced this as well and thought it was just weird because it just started happening when I was doing like a Alpine Trail on the treadmill where it takes u from various speeds and inclines. I lost hearing in my left ear for hours and I noticed if I do a strenuous run, it happens for like 3 or 4 hrs until it goes away.It is very frustrating since I do not what caused it, I have been going to the gym for over 2 yrs straight. I dont know which kind of doctor I would see for this
Just wanted to chime in and say thank you for posting. I developed severe hearing loss in my right ear and moderate hearing loss in my left year when I was about seven years old. I had extensive testing done and nothing was found.
At age 27 my hearing suddenly dropped in the middle of a run and my left ear dipped into severe loss. I went to the ENT and asked about LVAS. He said exercise would not cause hearing loss and shrugged me off saying that it likely dipped over time and just had gotten to a point where I noticed it.
Now, two years later at age 29, the same thing happened at the beginning of the last leg of an Olympic length triathlon (about 3.5 hours of exercise, I work hard but not to the point of exhaustion). I’m not sure how to get the ENT to take me more seriously and will try to find a more knowledgeable ENT in my area.
I have recently been experiencing the same exact thing!! During my workouts I usually loose hearing in my left ear for 3-4 minutes and today I even lost it in my right ear!! I don’t think I am too excessive with my exercising(40-90 minutes a day) and I am really freaked out…. I don’t want one day for my hearing to never come back, but I just can give up my exercise, it’s what keeps me going. Please keep us updated if you find anything else!!
Hi Diane:
No one is suggesting you give up on exercise–just tone it down a bit to the level where you don’t lose any hearing. You’ll have to discover where that limit is for you and just stay under that threshold.
Regards
Neil
Can anyone share with us a success story concerning exercise induced hearing loss and what they did to treat it? I too suffer from this condition and would like to find a plausible solution, especially one that has worked for others.
Interesting discussion. I too have neural hearing loss which also seems to vary week-by-week. I play a lot of tennis and suspect that the ball impacts are hurting my hearing, as the tinnitus is worse the next day. Could a soccer referee’s whistle have a similar effect? (See the comment above from Shannon about her husband.)
My hearing loss has a genetic element, as my mother and cousins suffer too. But I’m always looking for ways of mitigating it, as it does vary.
I turn my hearing aids down during tennis, but it’s always a matter of achieving a balance between protecting the ears and hearing the scoring and other comments from fellow players.
Neil Bauman’s blog post is now historical, but I’d be glad to hear of others’ experiences.
Hi all,
My 18yrs old son has a bilateral deafness and last year was diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss. He’s been hospitalized and undergone pretty much every test there is, to try and decipher why this dramatic and sudden change in hearing.
For the moment, the best they can come up with is sensorineural hearing loss and as he works out everyday, mainly weightlifting, I had wondered if this in periods of exertion had played any part in the sudden bouts of deafness he has. The ENT specialists reckon not although they do tend to shrug their shoulders a lot.
He wears a hearing aid full time since last year but even that doesn’t help when he’s having a bad phase. Thing is, sport is what helps him live with his deafness but he’s now trying to keep it moderate for a while.
Hard to pin point exactly what’s causing the loss, although reading your posts have encouraged me to investigate further.
I’m pretty sure there’s a link somewhere.
Courage to all living with this!
Hi Julie:
Did you see one of my other articles on this subject? There I give three different reasons for hearing loss following hearing loss. You might want to read it. It is at http://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/strenuous-exercise-and-resulting-hearing-loss/
Cordially,
Neil
Many thanks Neil. That was an interesting read!
It’s quite possible that he suffers from perilymphatic fistula or LVAS.
I will ask his doctors to look into both even if they do tend to be a little on the skeptical side.
At the moment, we’re giving him a few days to see if he’ll regain the loss this time round. You just never know how it’ll end up. I’ll pop back to let you all know what the docs say.
Fingers crossed!
Hi, thank-you for the article. I am 58 years old and am deaf in my right ear and have very limited hearing in my left one, and therefore have to use a hearing aid. My problem is partly genetic, (as far as I know)my great grand father was born deaf, my father lost all hearing in one ear very young and had a hearing aid in his other ear also. My older sister and I both have suffered an acoustic neuroma. I believe my sister was treated with chemo and retained 40% of her hearing in that ear. Her other ear is good. I was treated with the “cyberknife” technology in Dec.2010 but lost ALL hearing in that ear. (my right ear), and have since also suffered more and more hearing loss in my left ear, so I also have to wear a hearing aid. I have been into bodybuilding, thus lifting relatively heavy weights since childhood and still do. I work out 4 times per week and I do push very hard. Recently the hearing in my left ear has decreased tremendously. I also suffer from permanent very loud tennitus. Like others here I have been seen by specialists and audiologists etc…etc… etc… And as usual they just shrug it off and cannot offer any explanation, solution or cause. This is getting sooo frustrating, I live alone and must always use subtitles on the t.v. I would like to know if the intense bodybuilding can affect my hearing and what I can do about it, if anything. I do take a bit of pre-work-out juice and creatine and I think this makes the hearing loss worse, but when i cycle off for a month, my hearing usually improves somewhat. But this last time it hasn’t and seems to be getting worse fast now.I will no longer use pre-workout or creatine in the future, but I don’t really want to stop lifting weights/bodybuilding. I have been very active into physical sports like hockey and lacrosse all my youth too. I know that stress and anxiety also make the little hearing I have left much worse until I get home and relax for a while. But, I recently purchased an A/C unit, and think that I may have developed a “head cold” as my head feels like it’s under water or inside an aquarium,lol and my hearing is just about gone. The A/C is set at 26 degrees celsius, but I do remember not liking the effect that A/C has on me since childhood. Even being in the car with my dad really bothered me when the A/C was “on”. With the extreme heat and humidity we are getting here these last few years(Ontario Canada), are getting tougher to handle, thus the purchase of the A/C unit, so I’ve stopped using it, but still feel like I have a head cold, but no other symptoms, except for the hearing loss and loud tennitus. What can I do to check all this out? Can you shed some light on all this, especially about the heavy lifting? I appreciate you taking the time to look into this for me, as I’m getting nowhere with specialists and am getting more and more sad and worried, as nobody really wants to lose their hearing…It might be o.k. to be deaf at times if one is married, but I am single…lol Please help…
Hi PB:
For some people, intense exercise results in hearing loss. When they stop the exercise, often their hearing returns. The key word here is “intense”. I recommend that such people don’t push themselves so hard. Take it back a notch and cut the exercise to moderate. That way you are still exercising and bodybuilding–just not at such an intense level that it affects your hearing.
I don’t know the exact reason for your hearing loss, but I suspect it has to do with blood flow to your inner ears. When you are doing intense body-building, I suspect most of your blood is being directed to your muscles and thus is diverted from some peripheral areas like you inner ears. The result is that your inner ears don’t receive enough blood to function properly and you have a temporary hearing loss–as long as this doesn’t go on for so long that some of the cells in your inner ears die from lack of oxygen. If that happens, then the temporary hearing loss changes to a permanent hearing loss.
Stress and anxiety constrict your arteries and thus also limit blood flow. So the extreme exercise, coupled with stress or anxiety can make things even worse.
The obvious solution is to tone down the exercise to a point where it doesn’t affect your ears, and get your stress/anxiety under control. It could be just that simple.
Historically, what effect did A/C have on your ears? Did you ears “clog up” or feel clogged up back then?
Is the effect exactly the same now, or is it different?
Since you stopped using the A/C and your ears still feel blocked, I think this is just a psychological feeling your brain gives you when you experience a sudden hearing loss. Your brain reasons, “I can’t hear much now so obviously the ears are blocked or I’d hear more, wouldn’t I.” Thus it give you the blocked sensation.
Doctors don’t realize this, so look into your ear canals and say, “Nope–nothing blocked” and send you on your (not so) merry way.
Does all this ring a bell with you?
Cordially,
Neil