Listening to loss – a complication of Lyme disease

There have been reported instances of sudden onset or progressive listening to loss as the first or sole symptom of Lyme disease. On this case report, investigators describe a affected person who instantly misplaced listening to in each ears and later examined optimistic for Lyme disease.

Of their article “Isolated Sudden Bilateral Neurosensory Hearing Loss as a Presentation of Lyme Neuroborreliosis: A Case Study,” Rochd et al. talk about the case of a 23-year-old lady who “offered with a 2-month historical past of temporal headache, tinnitus, and instability, which was adopted by sudden bilateral listening to loss with out every other related signs.”¹

The girl was initially handled with corticosteroids following Stennert’s protocol for sudden listening to loss. Nevertheless, testing for Lyme disease was optimistic by Western blot, and the affected person was prescribed a 21-day course of doxycycline.

“Nevertheless, regardless of remedy, the affected person didn’t expertise any enchancment in her listening to loss,” the authors state. “In consequence, she is now being thought-about for a cochlear implant.”

[Note by Dr. Daniel Cameron: The patient may have recovered her hearing loss had she received a longer course of antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease.]

“Some research reported instances of Lyme disease presenting with sudden onset or progressive listening to loss as the first or sole symptom.”

The authors counsel that clinicians think about Lyme disease in sufferers with sudden listening to loss, significantly when sufferers reside in Lyme endemic areas or have a historical past of a tick chew “and even when no medical historical past is current and paraclinical examinations are inconclusive.” Immediate analysis and remedy, they level out, can stop potential problems.

How can listening to loss happen?

• “It’s thought that the micro organism could trigger an inflammatory response within the tissues of the interior ear, main to wreck to the hair cells or nerve fibers answerable for listening to.”
• “… the micro organism could immediately invade and harm these constructions.”
• “Additionally it is potential that the listening to loss is a results of the physique’s immune response to the micro organism, which might trigger harm to wholesome tissues as effectively.”

The precise mechanism by which Lyme disease results in neurosensory listening to loss is just not absolutely understood, however it’s believed to be associated to the inflammatory response triggered by the an infection.