1. Sudden Deafness Ear Emergencies Sudden deafness is a sensorineural deafness with a complex and incompletely understood etiology, in which hearing decreases to its lowest point within a few hours or days. Patients often wake up in the morning and notice the hearing loss on their own. Hearing loss can range from mild decompensation to total deafness. Often, the deafness is unilateral. Most patients have tinnitus or a self-perceived blockage in the ear, and some patients have vertigo or dizziness. Sudden deafness can occur at all ages, and there is no gender difference in its incidence. The cause of sudden deafness is not well understood by modern medicine, but it is generally believed that it may be related to viral infection and impaired blood circulation in the inner ear. Epidemiological investigations have found that sudden deafness is associated with many viruses, such as cytomegalovirus, mumps virus, herpes virus, varicella-zoster virus, influenza virus, parainfluenza virus, rubella virus, rhinovirus, adenovirus type III, EBV, and coxsackievirus. Many patients with sudden deafness have a history of colds before the onset of the disease, and it is more likely that sudden deafness in adolescents is caused by viral infections. The blood supply to the inner ear comes from the vagus artery, a branch from the vertebral artery. The labyrinth artery is relatively slender, often anatomically variable, and susceptible to inadequate blood supply from the vertebral arteries, all of which determine the fragility of the inner ear blood supply system. Therefore, the inner ear is more prone to the formation of transient vasospasm, thrombosis, embolism, and hemorrhage, resulting in impaired blood supply to the inner ear, causing damage to hair cells or even necrosis, and causing sudden deafness. The sudden deafness in middle-aged and old people is mostly related to the blood circulation disorder in the inner ear. Because of the rapid onset and development of sudden deafness, it is easy to cause the sequelae of permanent deafness, so timely treatment is very important. In one case, a patient had a permanent deafness sequelae caused by sudden deafness in her right ear several years ago, and this time sudden deafness appeared in her left ear again. In the other case, she had been suffering from sudden deafness in both ears for two and a half years at the time of consultation and was wearing hearing aids. The needle sensation was quite strong during acupuncture, and the tinnitus soon changed from a high-pitched screeching sound to a low rumbling sound, and the ringing sound gradually became smaller. These two cases impressed us so much that we always let patients with sudden deafness to be treated as soon as possible in the clinic afterwards, and the effect is much better. We have calculated the relationship between the duration of the disease and the efficacy in a group of 38 patients with sudden deafness, and the results showed that the difference of the efficacy between different courses of the disease was statistically significant, and the best efficacy was achieved in those who had the disease within one week. We also analyzed the relationship between the efficacy and the age of the patients, and the results showed that the younger patients had better efficacy. Therefore, older patients in particular need to be treated aggressively. Patients with sudden deafness must not think that tinnitus and deafness are trivial and wait and see, missing the best time for treatment and causing permanent deafness. 3. Comprehensive treatment Synergistic effect Because the cause is unknown, there is no special treatment for sudden deafness, and the early treatment of this disease is effective, if a single treatment is used, and then change to another treatment when one treatment is ineffective, it is easy to miss the treatment time and cause serious consequences of permanent deafness. Therefore, it is generally believed that comprehensive treatment is more effective than monotherapy, and therefore acupuncture should be accompanied by drug treatments such as anti-viral, blood circulation improvement and nerve nutrition, as well as hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Studies have shown that the mechanism of acupuncture in the treatment of deafness may be as follows: acupuncture can restore the electrical activity of the auditory nerve cells lost due to damage, so that the nerve conduction barrier can be lifted, thus improving hearing; acupuncture can increase the excitability of the auditory center of the cerebral cortex and enhance the ability of the cortex to perceive and analyze sound information; acupuncture can reduce the degenerative necrosis of the cochlear hair cells and promote the compensatory effect of undamaged hair cells; acupuncture can improve the cochlear Acupuncture can improve blood circulation and improve metabolic status. It can be seen that the mechanism of acupuncture and drug therapy are different, and the synergistic effect is beneficial to improve the therapeutic effect. People often think that deafness is a deficiency of the kidneys in Chinese medicine, and that all they need to do is to tonify the kidneys. In addition to kidney deficiency in some elderly people, there are also other types of TCM evidence of sudden deafness, such as liver and gallbladder damp-heat, phlegm and fire stagnation, and qi stagnation and blood stasis. Excessive consumption of sweet and fatty foods, excessive smoking and alcohol are mostly phlegm and fire stagnation. Depression, trauma, surgery, etc. can lead to stagnation of qi and blood. Therefore, it is especially important to use different points and techniques according to the different evidence. Some patients with sudden deafness also have symptoms such as sleeplessness and vertigo, which are closely related to deafness and are mutually causative. For example, sleep disturbance leading to overexertion is one of the triggers of sudden deafness, while deafness can cause irritability and worsen insomnia. Vertigo is also an important cause of sudden deafness, and it is generally believed that sudden deafness with vertigo tends to have a poor outcome. As a result, with the improvement of these co-morbidities, the patient gets more adequate rest, eliminates irritability, and the deafness recovers faster and better, which shows that the treatment of co-morbidities helps the recovery of sudden deafness.