Sudden deafness is abbreviated as "sudden deafness", which is a common sensorineural deafness, which can be onset in all seasons, but less frequently in autumn. The age of the patients is usually 20 to 40 years old. Mental workers suffer from this disease slightly.

The causes of sudden deafness can be roughly divided into three categories: The first category is that the cause is clear when the symptoms appear, such as inner ear damage and inner ear infection. The second category can also be diagnosed through medical history and examination, such as Meniere's disease, drug-induced deafness, syphilis, acoustic neuroma, and neurological deafness. The third category is that the cause is difficult to determine. Sudden deafness that belongs to the first and second types of conditions, each belongs to the symptoms of the original disease, has its own disease name, such as otitis, Meniere's disease, etc., and does not belong to the category of "sudden deafness". "Sudden deafness" specifically refers to people with unknown etiology who do not have the first two types of symptoms. Some scholars call this "idiopathic deafness."

The incidence of this disease tends to increase year by year. According to statistics, in 1971 there were more than 40,000 cases in the United States each year; Japanese doctor Yuesheng carried out statistical work on deafness for 12 years and found that among 9343 patients with neurological deafness, 411 were sudden deafness. In our country, sudden deafness is also a frequently-occurring disease in otology. Although there is no exact statistical data, the incidence of sudden deafness in clinical observation is increasing year by year as in foreign countries.

Most sudden deafness has no aura before the onset. A few people may have a history of mild colds, fatigue, or emotional agitation. Sudden deafness occurs, either suddenly reaching severe deafness, or slow-onset, gradually worsening within 1 hour to several days or a week. If the onset is sudden, the patient can hear a pop or click in the ear, and then feel deafness. Deafness is mostly one ear, and it is rare that both ears are deaf at the same time. Some people with unilateral deafness did not pay attention at the time, but only found out when they made a phone call or listened to a conversation with one ear. It is rare to cause total deafness in patients, and about 70% of them have tinnitus. Some patients experience dizziness, feel that the surrounding objects are turning, or feel that their body is spinning, accompanied by nausea and vomiting. In addition to the above symptoms, a small number of people may have symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections such as headaches and low-grade fever.

The detailed causes of sudden deafness are not very clear at present. The more recognized causes are viral infection and vascular disease (bleeding, spasm, sclerosis, embolism) causing blood circulation disorders in the inner ear. If someone isolates the virus in the cerebrospinal fluid of a patient with "sudden deafness", the patient's deafness will not get better after various treatments. Someone observed that the blood vessels of the conjunctiva of patients with "sudden deafness" were blocked by a skin and mucosal microscope with a magnification of 55 times. From this, it can be inferred that the inner ear is also blocked. The inner ear is an organ that senses sound and manages its own balance. It is small in size, only the size of a grain of rice. The intravascular auditory artery that supplies blood to the inner ear originates from the intracranial vertebrobasilar artery and is long and thin. According to some data, the thinnest part of the internal auditory artery can only pass four red blood cells side by side, so it is prone to obstruction ischemia. The inner ear has poor tolerance to hypoxia. Once the blood supply to the inner ear is impaired, ischemia and hypoxia, cell dysfunction will quickly appear, resulting in cell damage and necrosis, resulting in a temporary or permanent decline in hearing function.

For the drug treatment of sudden deafness, the purpose is to expand blood vessels, improve circulation and nourish nerves. Such as the use of dibaemide, niacin, 654-II, sibelin, as well as blood viscosity-lowering drugs such as low-molecular-weight dextrose, as well as drugs that promote cell metabolism ATP, coenzyme A, B vitamins and hormones Wait.

After suffering from this disease, oxygen therapy can be combined with drug treatment to improve local oxygen entrapment, adjust the metabolism of diseased cells, and reduce functional damage caused by ischemia and hypoxia. Oxygen should be inhaled as soon as possible after the onset of the disease, and pure oxygen should be inhaled under normal pressure once a day in the morning and in the afternoon. When the total oxygen inhalation is more than 2 hours, the effect is more significant. In medical units with hyperbaric oxygen chambers, if hyperbaric oxygen therapy by medical oxygen concentrators can be performed at the same time, the therapeutic effect will be more ideal.

After comprehensive treatment with drugs and oxygen, more than 80% of patients can heal or get better in varying degrees. Symptoms such as dizziness and vomiting can disappear, and hearing can be restored or improved. Generally speaking, it is difficult for patients to completely disappear with tinnitus. After treatment, 50% of patients still have tinnitus of varying degrees. If the family is equipped with oxygen generators and oxygen inhalation devices, continuing to inhale oxygen for a period of time is very necessary to correct the sequelae symptoms and prevent recurrence.