British TV presenter Richard Madeley says Covid made him deaf

London, Oct 9:  British TV presenter Richard Madeley says he has gone deaf after contracting Covid-19 infection.

The 67-year-old presenter said he has a perforated eardrum, The Sun reported.

While doctors have assured Madeley that his hearing will return to normal within weeks, he noted that his ear feels like it is “corked up” and he is struggling to hear when in busy areas and in crowds.

“I got a post-Covid complication. It’ll heal in time but for now it’s a total pain - it feels like I’ve got a cork in my right lughole!

"Funnily enough, doing GMB, which I was a bit worried about, gives me better hearing because I wear my studio earpiece in that ear and I can wind up the volume to the max: it's a bit like having a hearing aid I suppose.

"I'll just have to be patient - my ENT [Ear, Nose and Throat] guy says perforated eardrums take a few weeks to self-heal. So there'll be a lot of 'pardon?' and 'what?' from me between now and Christmas."

In April, a fully-vaccinated nursing lecturer at the University of South Australia had also revealed her sudden hearing loss post a mild bout of Covid.

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) -- also known as sudden deafness -- is a little known and poorly understood side effect of Covid-19 that is not even listed as a common symptom by doctors, said Kim Gibson, a registered nurse with a clinical background in neonatal intensive care, in a paper published in the British Medical Journal Case Reports.

Gibson developed acute hearing loss in one ear, along with vertigo and tinnitus five weeks after experiencing a mild Covid infection in 2022.

“The evidence around the short and long-term impacts of Covid-19 and vaccines is still emerging and the aim of this paper is to highlight the lesser-known side effects of the virus,” Gibson said.

“We believe that clinicians should include sudden hearing loss as a potential side effect of Covid-19 when talking to patients. High-dose corticosteroids are a recommended first line of treatment for SSNHL and it is important that GPs promptly refer patients to specialists as soon as symptoms develop," Gibson added.

Another study of hearing loss during the pandemic showed that approximately one third of patients with SSNHL were positive with Covid-19 when they were referred to an audiologist. Other studies reported an increase of SSNHL in 2020 and 2021, including among asymptomatic people.