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.
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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.