She Lost Her Hearing Walking In Her Backyard: Uncommon COVID-19 Symptoms

Stories from COVID-19 patients suggest we might want to add a new symptom to the list of early warning signs: sudden hearing loss.

Meredith Harrell, for example, did not yet know she had the virus when her right ear shut down as she walked through her backyard recently, leaving only a ringing sound.

She expressed no other symptoms. The culprit was discovered when Harrell received a COVID-19 test and a hearing specialist suggested the virus could be to blame.

“It was like someone flipped a switch,” Harrell told CNN.

She isn’t alone. While the prevalence of hearing loss among COVID-19 patients is yet to be fully studied, several smaller investigations have touched on the issue. A study in the International Journal of Audiology asked COVID-19 patients to report whether their hearing had changed and found that 13% said it had.

Beyond the normal coughs, fevers, aches, and difficulty breathing that most patients expressing COVID-19 symptoms experience, the Mayo Clinic notes several less common signs:

• Gastrointestinal distress
• Loss of smell or taste
• Rashes and lesions, especially on hands and feet
• Confusion and delirium
• Eye infection and light sensitivity, especially in severe cases

COVID-19 wouldn’t be the first virus to affect the hearing of its victims. Measles, mumps and meningitis have been known to inflict hearing loss, as well. Less clear is the exact mechanism COVID-19 uses, as biopsies of the inner ears of living patients can cause tissue damage.

Dr. Matthew Stewart, an associate professor with Johns Hopkins University, performed autopsies of three COVID-19 victims and found the virus in the ear tissue of two of them.

Stewart suggested that the “extremely small blood vessels” in the inner ear could be particularly vulnerable to clotting, something that COVID-19 has been known to cause elsewhere in the body. Larger studies are planned in the hopes of conclusive findings.

"We're hearing more and more that people have hearing loss as part of their COVID infection," he told CNN.

There is a possible treatment for COVID-19’s hearing loss: large doses of oral steroids. A student who spoke to CNN lost almost all hearing in his left ear after going through more common COVID-19 symptoms. However, a series of steroids restored his ability to hear low- and mid-tones. The tinnitus that came with his hearing loss, however, might never go away.

Harrell, for one, was not helped by steroids, and her doctors say that her hearing loss and tinnitus are unlikely to heal. She plans to be fitted with a hearing aid.