I temporarily lost hearing in my right ear earlier this year. I started off feeling a lot of pain in my ear canal, to the point I couldn't sleep. I thought I had a clogged ear due to something, perhaps wax. Later on I felt perhaps I had an object in there, like a bug or something. I tried removing it, didn't work. Meanwhile I realized I had pus in my ear instead of wax.
Long story short after a week of pain and with my hearing being at like 10% in that ear, I went to the doctor. Turns out I had an ear infection and my ear canal was swollen. I'm glad I didn't go too crazy trying to remove something from my ear: i could have fukked it up big time. The doctor prescribed me antibiotics and 2 days later my hearing was 100% back.
I didn't even have a good excuse not to go to the doctor first, since I have health insurance. Just being a guy, and you know how we wanna wait till the last minute hoping things magically get better. If you have ear issues you should def go ASAP. If you don't have insurance you can go to one of those health clinics and get a checkup for $60-100.