Sudden hearing loss

Yesterday I was sitting in a perfectly normal business meeting explaining the vision of the reporting solution when I sneezed. Prior to the sneeze I felt perfectly fine, was on the tail end of a very normal 3-4 day cold, but I was feeling good, and hearing excellent. I heard a little pop in my right ear when I sneezed, no more significant than you hear when your ears pop going up or down the mountain road, but instantly after the pop and sneeze there was a very loud high pitched ringing in my right ear and I could hear almost nothing using my right ear. I was very surprised and over the next few hours got very dizzy and somewhat nauseous. I am working in Dallas (home is Denver) so I started calling ENT's to get an appointment which was tough but got an apt for this morning which I just got back from. The otologist said he could detect nothing wrong (no fluid, or wax, or swelling, or stuff like that) which I knew was a bad sign (I figured it meant that it was something tiny and sophisticated deep inside the ear that he couldn't see or get to) and he diagnosed me with "sudden hearing loss." Great, that confirms that they have no idea why this happened. It's like going to a back surgeon with chronic back pain and he diagnoses you with "back hurts a lot" - a real confidence builder. So the plan is to pump me full of antibiotics, antiviral meds, steroids, and hope that whatever is happening can be stopped and corrected. Wish me and the meds luck... oh, he also suggested I follow up with a local ENT (I have an apt for that tomorrow) and that he will probably want to do an MRI. Good times!