Hearing gone muffled.
Just when I'd got my back operated on, and my retina peeled, my hearing's gone all muffled. Had to press the GP to get to see a specialist, but he, the specialist, says it's pressure in the cochlea and they're not quite sure what causes it.
I was so depressed when I got home I rummaged though the medicine cupboard and found half a course of Cefalexin - just about in date, though it had a pungent smell when liberated from the plastic.
The logic of this was the feeling I get when making some sounds - it's as though I'm causing pressure on the eardrum from the middle ear. It suddenly pushes out. So, a glue ear or some-such. I hasten to add I did read up for many sessions.
The bloke at the hospital took a quick look in the outer ear and decided there was no sign of infection. That was one hell of a quick diagnosis to risk my hearing on.
The thing is, I got a very significant improvement within 36 hours and could hear quite well again. But, one of the side-effects of this AB is the trots. Suddenly it was worse than Picolax and a lot more painful. I gave up taking the AB, but now the hearing is very poor again - I would love to have taken at least four days of it which would have given more ammo to pester for an urgent appointment. Now of course I've probably made the infection worse.
Absolutely screwed by this as it takes weeks to get to see a doctor and it's taken months to get the see the specialist. In the meantime the first course of action was to get a hearing check and a pair of hearing aids. I kept saying that when it's in a good phase, my hearing is fairly good, and it's not loss of hearing, but a total muffled sound that just gets louder with the aids.
Age 76, hearing loss about normal for age. Normally good becoming muffled intermittently. The bad times increasing in frequency.
Anyone with relevant knowledge? Please don't tell me about self-medicating. It's like a third world country down hear with 2, occasionally 3 doctors working like hell where 7 was the norm - and that was before the last population increase. I hate to pester them, but this has pretty well been the final thing for 24 hours a day isolation from any social interaction.