Rare Disease Sapping Limbaugh’s Hearing

Radio host Rush Limbaugh, who announced Monday that he has gone nearly deaf, is suffering from a rare inner-ear disease, according to the doctors treating him at the House Ear Clinic and Institute in Los Angeles.

Specialists from the institute and from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Wednesday they are giving Limbaugh, 50, medication and may turn to surgery for auto-immune inner ear disease, in which the body’s immune system attacks the inner ear and damages the hearing nerve.

“The physicians are confident that with the proper treatment, Mr. Limbaugh will be able to retain some of his hearing,” the institute said in a written statement. A news conference was planned for today.

Limbaugh stunned his fans and foes alike when he said during Monday’s broadcast that he noticed the hearing problem May 29, and since then he has gone deaf in his left ear, and nearly so in his right.

“Hearing aids, the most powerful made, mean nothing. I cannot hear radio; I cannot hear television; I cannot hear music,” he said during his show. “I am, for all practical purposes, deaf--and it’s happened in three months.”

He did not say at the time what caused the sudden loss, or how he and his staff were working around the problem so he could continue taking listeners’ calls and doing his show, heard locally on KFI-AM (640). Limbaugh has declined all interview requests, limiting his comments to his broadcast.

Symptoms of AIED, which causes fewer than 1% of all cases of hearing loss or dizziness, include fluctuating hearing and problems with balance.

When an adult with normal hearing experiences a sudden, serious hearing loss, it is usually triggered by certain drugs such as antibiotics or diuretics, or in rare cases by the onset of auto-immune inner-ear disease.

If the trigger is medication, typically once someone stops taking the drug, hearing returns. Similarly, patients with auto-immune disorders who suffer a sudden hearing loss usually respond to treatment with steroids.

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Times staff writer Linda Marsa contributed to this report from Los Angeles.