A Covid-19 patient in the UK now has permanent hearing loss
- A 45-year-old UK man with asthma was hospitalised for over 30 days, during which time he developed pneumonia, blood clots and hypertension
- Once doctors removed the man from his ventilator, his hearing deteriorated, an issue he never experienced before
An otherwise healthy 45-year-old man in the UK lost his hearing after having Covid-19, making him the first reported case of such an instance in the country, according to a new case study in BMJ Case Reports.
The man, whose only underlying condition was asthma, experienced sudden onset sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL), or mild-to-severe hearing loss over a three-day period due to inner-ear damage.
According to the doctors who authored the case report, only five other instances of Covid-19-related permanent hearing loss have been reported, and this was the first-ever UK case.
After having Covid-19 symptoms for 10 days, including shortness of breath, the man went to the hospital where he was admitted to the intensive care unit and put on a ventilator.
He stayed on the ventilator for 30 days, the doctors wrote, and during that time he developed pneumonia, blood clots in his lungs, hypertension, and anaemia.
Doctors gave him remdesivir, steroids, and plasma to treat him, and he started to feel better. But a week after he stopped using the ventilator, the man noticed he couldn't hear most sounds in both ears, something he'd never experienced before.