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hello, i've just returned from 2 weeks in mexico where I lost complete hearing in my right ear during, or immediately after a scuba dive to about 12 meters for 35 minutes.

I am a certified diver but have always experienced problems with equalising ear pressure on descending. This dive was no different but better than most...Not too much pressure on the ear.

About 5 minutes into the dive, I experienced a loud high pitched sound that increased in volume and then died off. When I surfaced about 30 minutes later, I realised something was not right as I had zero hearing in right ear and was disorientated....Like after a general anasthetic or concusion. My world was not spinning around but I definately had a bad orientation problem, like being banged on the back of the head with a base ball bat. No headaches or ear pain. Just deaf and disorientated.

I was booked into the hospital, where I was seen by an ent specialist who performed various audio tests and had a quick look in my ear. He couldn't see anything wrong with the outer ear and couldn't identify any problems with the ear drum. The sound tests confirmed that I had 100% acute hearing loss to the right ear. He said the prognosis was not good and recommended hypobaric chamber treatment (very expensive!!)

i completed 10 x 1 hour sessions of hyperbaric chamber treatment but there was no improvement. I did notice after the 2nd session that if I wore walkman headphones with volume on full, I could hear low pitch and very low volume noise but couldn't make out what it was. The next day, this went and I can now hear nothing at all in right ear.

I have just arrived back in the uk and am scheduled to see another ent specialist tomorrow that will include mri scans and other tests we couldn't afford to do in meixco.

I have tried researching this topic on the internet and it seems that even doctors and ent specialists have problems in resolving or identifying causes relative to hearing issues. From what I have read, anything from a blood clot to a brain tumour and hundreds of other factors in between could cause hearing loss. Menieres disease, viral infections etc, etc...The list is endless!!!

Does anyone have experience of this sudden hearing loss syndrome, what could cause it, what the prognosis might be? And if anyone has any information on the benefits of hyperbaric treatment and if it really does help, i'd be extremely gratefull. Thanks.