Your Body’s Ability to Recover
The human body commonly can heal scratches, cuts, and broken bones, although some injuries take longer than others. But you’re out of luck when it comes to fixing the tiny little hairs in your ears. At least, so far. Though scientists are working on it, humans can’t repair the cilia in their ears in the same way animals can. That means, if you damage these hairs or the hearing nerve, you could have permanent hearing loss.
When Is Hearing Loss Irreversible?
When you find out you have hearing loss, the first thing that most people think is will I get it back? Whether it will or not depends on many factors. There are two basic types of hearing loss:
- Obstruction based hearing loss: You can experience all the signs of hearing loss when there is something obstructing your ear canal. This obstruction can be caused by a wide range of things, from debris to earwax to tumors. What’s promising is that after the blockage is cleared your hearing often returns to normal.
- Loss of hearing caused by damage: But there’s another, more prevalent kind of hearing loss that accounts for nearly 90 percent of hearing loss. Known medically as sensorineural hearing loss, this type of hearing loss is often irreversible. Here’s what occurs: there are tiny hairs in your ear that move when hit with moving air (sound waves). Your brain is good at turning these vibrations into the sounds you can hear. But your hearing can, as time passes, be permanently damaged by loud noises. Sensorineural hearing loss can also be caused by injury to the nerve or to the inner ear. A cochlear implant may help improve hearing in some cases of hearing loss, especially severe cases.
Whether hearing aids will help restore your hearing can only be figured out by having a hearing exam.
Hearing Loss Treatment
Sensorineural hearing loss presently has no cure. But that’s doesn’t mean you can’t find treatment for your loss of hearing. The following are some ways that getting the right treatment can help you:
- Keep isolation at bay by staying socially engaged.
- Protect and preserve the hearing you have left.
- Successfully deal with the symptoms of hearing loss you might be experiencing.
- Stop cognitive decline.
- Guarantee your overall quality of life is unaffected or remains high.
This treatment can have many forms, and it’ll usually depend on how severe your hearing loss is. One of the most common treatment options is fairly simple: hearing aids.
How is Hearing Loss Treated by Hearing Aids
Hearing aids help the ear with hearing loss to hear sounds and function to the best of their ability. When your hearing is hindered, the brain strains to hear, which can exhaust you. As scientist acquire more insights, they have identified a greater chance of mental decline with a persistent lack of cognitive input. By letting your ears to hear again, hearing aids assist the restoration of mental function. In fact, it has been shown that wearing hearing aids can slow cognitive decline by as much as 75%. Modern hearing aids will also allow you to focus on what you want to hear, and tune out background noises.
Prevention is The Best Protection
If you get one thing from this little lesson, hopefully, it’s this: you can’t depend on recovering from loss of hearing, so instead you should concentrate on protecting the hearing you’ve got. Sure, if you have something stuck in your ear canal, you can probably have it extracted. But that doesn’t decrease the risk from loud sounds, noises you may not even consider to be loud enough to be all that dangerous. That’s why it’s not a bad idea to take the time to protect your ears. If you are eventually diagnosed with hearing loss, you will have more treatment options if you take measures today to safeguard your hearing. Treatment can help you live a great, full life even if recovery isn’t a possibility. Contact a hearing care expert to find out what your best option is.