The Healing Capability of Your Body
While some wounds take longer to heal than others, the human body generally has no issue healing cuts, scrapes, or broken bones. But when it comes to fixing the tiny little hairs in your ear, you’re out of luck. At least, so far. Animals are able to heal damage to the cilia in their ears and recover their hearing, but humans don’t have that ability (though scientists are working on it). That means, if you damage these hairs or the hearing nerve, you may have irreversible loss of hearing.
When Is Hearing Loss Irreversible?
The first thing you think of when you find out you have hearing loss is, will it come back? Whether it will or not depends on many factors. There are two fundamental kinds of hearing loss:
- Damage based hearing loss: But there’s another, more common type of hearing loss that accounts for about 90 percent of hearing loss. This kind of hearing loss, which is usually permanent, is known as sensorineural hearing loss. Here’s how it works: When hit by moving air (sound waves), tiny little hairs in your ears move. Your brain is good at turning these vibrations into the sounds you can hear. But loud sounds can cause damage to the hairs and, over time, permanently diminish your hearing. Sensorineural hearing loss can also be caused by injury to the nerve or to the inner ear. In certain cases, specifically in cases of severe hearing loss, a cochlear implant could help improve hearing.
- Obstruction based hearing loss: When there’s something blocking your ear canal, you can experience all the symptoms of hearing loss. Debris, earwax, and tumors are some of the things that can cause an obstruction. What’s promising is that once the obstruction is cleared your hearing often returns to normal.
A hearing exam will help you figure out whether hearing aids will help restore your hearing.
Hearing Loss Treatment
Sensorineural hearing loss presently has no cure. But it might be possible to get treatment for your hearing loss. The following are some ways that getting the right treatment can help you:
- Protect and preserve the hearing you have left.
- Successfully deal with any of the symptoms of hearing loss you may be experiencing.
- Keep isolation at bay by staying socially engaged.
- Stop cognitive decline.
- Make sure your overall quality of life is unaffected or remains high.
Depending on how severe your hearing loss is, this treatment can have many kinds. One of the most common treatments is fairly simple: hearing aids.
How is Hearing Loss Treated by Hearing Aids
People who have loss of hearing can use hearing aids to detect sounds and work as efficiently as they can. Fatigue is the result when the brain strains to hear because hearing is hampered. As scientist gain more knowledge, they have recognized a greater danger of mental decline with a persistent lack of cognitive input. Your mental function can start to be recovered by using hearing aids because they allow your ears hear again. as a matter of fact, it has been shown that using hearing aids can slow cognitive decline by as much as 75%. Background sound can also be drowned out by contemporary hearing aids allowing you to concentrate on what you want to hear.
Prevention is The Best Defense
Hopefully, if you take one thing away from this knowledge, it this: you can’t count on recovering from loss of hearing, so instead you should concentrate on safeguarding the hearing you’ve got. Certainly, if you get something blocking your ear canal, more than likely you can have it cleared. But many loud noises are dangerous even though you might not think they are that loud. That’s why it’s not a bad idea to take the time to protect your ears. The better you safeguard your hearing today, the more treatment options you’ll have when and if you are eventually diagnosed with loss of hearing. Treatment can help you live a great, full life even if recovery isn’t an option. To determine what your best choice is, make an appointment with a hearing care professional.