Thanks for the links. They have helped me understand what is happening with me the last days.

Sudden deafness. I thought for a moment I might have it. The stories in the links above described exactly what was happening.

Fridaymorning last week I did not hear anything anymore with one ear. Saturday I went to a barbershop to have my ears cleaned. Afterwards I did not hear much with the other ear too. My estimation is that my hearing dropped from 80/90% to about 10/20%. So I started looking at the internet for more info since cleaning was not the solution apparently.

I read the stories on the internet about sudden deafness, or almost deafness, which seemed to be happening to a small percentage of the people and can have various causes, one of which could be possible in my case (there is much unclear about the causes). There is a percentage of spontaneous healing of about 50%, for the other 50% there is no healing and it is a lifelong condition.

So I started worrying: it is a very threatening idea of not hearing much. Silence, a feeling of total isolation, cut of from the rest of the world, becoming dependant of other people (I am glad I have a very good girlfriend at the moment). No more music, no more TV, not hearing anything when you flush the toilet, rear a cup of coffee, closing a door. Not hearing the traffic, except some very noisy tuk-tuks when they where very close. Dangerous. (Nevertheless sometimes I thought it is nice and quiet not hearing soo much).

Communication becomes very difficult (I had to hold my ear very close to the mouth of other people and they had to speak loudly). The chances of misunderstandings and irritations -so-wie-so not uncommon for falangs in Thailand- are growing much.

The happy ending: on monday I went to see a doctor and soon the trouble was over by a real cleaning of the ears. All in all it was a very learnfull experience which enlarged my understanding of deaf people and the problems they face.