Hi. Has anyone else felt as if their head and ears are stuffed with cotton wool since their stroke? Eight months post stroke and have been like this since day one. Have had a hearing test and been diagnosed as having mild to moderate hearing loss. Now have hearing aids which hasn’t changed anything except I can hear every little noise except other people’s voices clearly! The only extra medication I have been put on since the stroke is Amlodipine for blood pressure so I can’t think it’s medication related. Anyone else have this?
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I had the same in the first year of my stroke, can’t say how long it took but I think it was gone by the second year for sure, though do occasionally an odd bout of it.
If you can’t hear other peoples voices clearly then your hearing aids still need adjusting. You need to go back to who you got them from to sort them out, that shouldn’t be a problem.
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Emerald keep hoping it will go away but so far no luck. So annoying. As for the hearing aids they are NHS!
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Didn’t the ENT give you a number to call for their drop in clinics or anything?
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Emerald it was Audiology and yes I will probably phone them eventually. It’s such a faff going to our hospital at the moment as they are starting to build a new one. Parking a nightmare- no change there - and sure it will be worth it in 2030 when it’s supposed to be finished!
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Ah right but darn, it should be quick and easy to get in and get it sorted too…and it’s not often you can say that about hospitals 
Audiology is actually part of ENT, one of many departments within 
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@Apple i had that feeling for many months after my stroke. It did eventually start to lift but i still get it from time to time. I didn’t get a lot of sympathy from my stroke consultant when i mentioned it & was basically told i had to get on with it.
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Mrs5K. I have no idea who my stroke consultant is. Haven’t seen any Drs from hospital since I left. Thank goodness for my lovely GP who explained my MRI results and also for my great Physio from the Community health team. And of course many thanks to the people on this great forum
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@Apple that’s not good. I would have thought you should have had a review. It seems to be very hit & miss. At least you have a great GP. Maybe ask them to refer you to the stroke team.
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I still have foggy head most of the time. I am almost 2 years out. I am looking forward to the day it disappears for good. Here’s hoping. No one seems concerned about it or the constant headaches. Now I am having earaches as well. I am very tired today, more than usual, but have just had surgery on Wednesday. If I am still this tired on Monday, I will be calling my Neurologist. I will skip the GP, and pretend I don’t know that is the protocol. Let’s call that one of those ‘adaptations’ to get around some of my issues. Since I have some cognitive issues that make things a bit harder, I will use that to make my life a little easier by saving myself time and effort going to the one who will just then send me to the other.
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DeAnn. Good luck with calling your neurologist. Not sure I’ve even got one. Our local hospital should do a consultation 3 months after discharge but they are so busy they are months behind. Not that I’m expecting miracles but really fed up with this head
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Morning Apple, the cotton wool head is often mentioned here, it comes and goes sometimes being replaced by porridge or tar in my case. On my discharge notes it said After a year need a check up with consultant. Go to my GP. Gets out my file, says here you’ve been discharged by consultant. But I say it says here , I should be checked out.Asks any problems ? Nothing serious I reply. That’s it then.
Wife intervenes but he’s insistent. So that’s it ! He obviously thinks about it, four weeks later get to see my consultant. Charming lady who talks me through whole experience, explaining mri scans. Keep taking tablets, eat sensibly and exercise and rest. So chase your GP up.
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Pds. Thanks for that. Seeing GP in a couple of weeks so will chase him up!!!
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Same with me, never saw a consultant even though taken to hospital three times, never kept in …but a consultant did phone me to say they had found 2 brain bleeds from the CT scan and would send me for an MRI, that was last year, and yes the GP has been great, and I got copies of all letters sent to her … but yes,I also would love an appointment with a consultant face to face, a one year check up, just to ask a few questions and allay some fears …I would also like another CT scan, just for the same reason …Val x
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Ismeval
I was in hospital for 5 weeks so can’t complain about that but it’s just this attitude of once you’re discharged that’s it that I don’t like. If it wasn’t for my GP and the Community Physio team who have both been amazing I think I would be stuck in a chair staring at 4 walls! But shouldn’t moan really - I’m still alive!
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Hi, yes I can identify with the head full of cotton wool feeling! I am 6 months post stroke and while I have recovered fairly well, I feel like I have fog/cotton wool in my head quite often. My hearing is fine in fact I feel less able to tolerate alot of noise.
I wondered if it was my medication but my GP wasnt very helpful and suggested it was physiological… who knows? But yes I do know where you are coming from.
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@Ktrean60 over sensitive hearing is quite common after stroke. I have it & really struggle with any noise. I have had my hearing checked & it’s fine. I bought some loop earplugs to help manage the noise levels. May be worth a try for you?
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I was a little angry reading your post…but now I see I read it wrong. physiological, not psychological. OOPS. I am sorry. I don’t want to hear I am making things up in my brain. If I feel it, it is real, regardless of whether or not my brain caused it. The foggy brain is the one thing that I have a terrible time dealing with. I would probably describe it as having a congested head, sinus, ears, and throat with the feeling that my head is a bowling ball sitting on my neck that is way to heavy to hold up. When I get to the point I cannot accomplish anything with it, I go to sleep, or at least lay down and close my eyes for a bit. It helps some. It helps more if I can imagine I am lying on the beach with an ocean breeze blowing over me (the overhead fan). A good imagination helps a lot, especially when I imagine myself doing something, then can actually find the way to do it.
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I miss read physiological too, but I have to reread anyway because of the way my minds likes to skim over things and doesn’t like long words…it’s always in such a darn hurry and it’s not as though it can even go off without me 
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That’s a really odd suggestion from medical professional considering the symptoms from a patient who is post stroke!
The one definite is that the areas of the body responsible for processing signals has been damaged .
Highly unlikely that the physical mechanical operation of your ear has been affected but highly likely that the perceptual operation of the neurological processing is affected.
Intolerance of noise and light post stroke is fairly common and some of it resolves for some people. I can’t remember if you’re recently post stroke or multiple years when resolution would have been more likely to occur if it’s going to.
There are coping strategies that you’ll find if you search either this forum or more widely on the net or even using tools like Google scholar
Ciao
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