Hearing Loss Treatment

When you’re around the dinner table, do you find it difficult to follow along with conversations? Are you still missing parts of phone conversations even though you have the volume turned up to the highest setting?
Happy multi-generation family enjoying in a lunch together at home.

You can feel really isolated when you have hearing loss. Your brain and mental function can be impacted by even minor hearing loss, which is dangerous because it often goes unnoticed in its early stages. 

Is hearing loss a very common condition? Globally, more than 466 million individuals are impacted by hearing loss, according to some estimates. Hearing loss is a diverse condition with many causes, types, and treatment options and is one of the most prevalent health concerns in the world. Health officials are heavily investing in educational programs to bring awareness to the fact that hearing loss is surprisingly preventable. Understanding the facts about hearing loss will put you in a better position to safeguard your own ability to hear. 

Some Symptoms Of Hearing Loss That Are Frequently Overlooked

Maybe you think hearing loss means you simply have a hard time hearing. But it’s not uncommon for the early indications of hearing loss to go undetected or even just ignored. Some signs of hearing loss include:

  • It sounds like people’s voices are muffled when they speak
  • When there is background noise, like crowd noise, hearing becomes a real challenge
  • You constantly need to turn up the volume on your devices
  • Because you have trouble hearing softer dialog, you’ve been avoiding going to the movies or to the theater
  • You’ve begun to isolate yourself from social situations, especially louder settings and bigger groups of people
  • You always feel exhausted even though you’re getting plenty of rest
  • You frequently find yourself tuning out colleagues
  • Memory and other basic cognitive functions are becoming a struggle for you

Contact us for a hearing test if you are noticing any of these initial symptoms.

Hearing Loss Causes

The underlying cause of hearing loss is sometimes fairly obvious. But identifying one particular cause of hearing loss, for most people, will be difficult. There can be a combination of slight problems, for instance, that interact in surprising ways to cause hearing loss. 

Here are a few common causes of hearing loss: 

Congenital Issues

For younger people, like children and infants, the most prevalent cause of hearing loss is birth defects or congenital problems. Even so, many hearing problems won't become apparent until the individual gets older.

Physical Obstruction

Hearing is dependent on the movement of sound vibrations traveling first into your outer ear, then through your middle ear via your ear canal. Loss of hearing can be the result if there's a blockage anywhere in that passageway. When the blockage is removed, hearing will usually return to normal.

Infection

Both primary and secondary infections can impact your ears. Severe or chronic ear infections can cause damage to your hearing ability, in some cases resulting in hearing loss.

Noise Damage

Exposure to overly loud noise, causing damage to your ears, is probably the most prevalent cause of chronic hearing loss. Gradual and irreversible deterioration of hearing ability can be caused by persistent exposure to sounds over the 85dB threshold.

Age

Age may be the main cause of hearing loss in some situations. But noise-induced hearing loss and age-related hearing loss can be difficult to differentiate. The two are functionally identical in many situations.

Trauma

Hearing loss can be caused by a variety of trauma types. That may, in some situations, be ear trauma. Trauma to the brain can cause both short and long-term hearing loss in other scenarios.

Types of Hearing Loss

Generally, there are two main categories of hearing loss:

Conductive Hearing Loss

When there is a blockage anywhere along the hearing pathway it causes this type of hearing loss. There could be a non-cancerous growth, for instance, or the blockage could be due to an infection. Even something as basic as earwax impaction could be the cause of the obstruction. Whatever the cause, the blockage effectively causes hearing loss by stopping sound waves from traveling through the ear canal.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Stereocilia, which are tiny hair cells in the ear, are responsible for our ability to hear. These hairs send signals to the brain after being exposed to waves of sound. Those signals are then converted by the brain into understandable sounds. Normally, noise exposure is the cause of this damage, and those little hairs never repair or regrow. Irreversible damage to hearing is the result.

With conductive hearing loss, hearing will usually return to normal when the blockage is removed. In some cases, both types of hearing loss could be present simultaneously. 

Treatments For Hearing Loss

Woman with ear hearing problem having fun with her friends in the parkMost hearing loss can be treated even if it can’t be cured. Regular hearing assessments might be all that is required in the less extreme cases. But when there is more significant hearing loss, hearing aids can be an effective treatment. 

There are a large number of sophisticated technologies packed inside of a modern hearing aid. Making voices and sounds sharper and clearer is exactly where innovations like machine learning-enabled sound balancing shine. And modern hearing aids come with an impressive array of other useful technologies, like Bluetooth connectivity, automatic emergency contacting, and step counting, to name just a few.

At first glance, it may seem excessive to pack that much technology into a hearing aid. But for individuals who cope with hearing loss, these technologies can be very helpful. Communication is improved with sound balancing which favors voices. Essential social bonds can be preserved and connection to the outside world can remain intact with features like Bluetooth. For someone with hearing impairment, maintaining quality of life is what all of these technologies were designed to accomplish.

Why Is It Essential To Effectively Manage Hearing Loss?

It’s very common for hearing loss to be treated by the use of hearing aids. Getting that treatment is really important, and not only for your hearing. 

Here are some of the advantages of getting prompt treatment:

Further progression of hearing loss can be delayed. It won't be necessary for someone with hearing aids to turn their TV volume up so loud it does further damage, for instance. The portion of your brain that processes sound can atrophy if it goes unused. Because you will be able to hear again with hearing aids, however, you will be able to re-engage your brain.
You will be better able to keep your social life intact. People who have hearing loss often cope with social isolation which can be alleviated by wearing hearing aids.
By getting your hearing loss treated with hearing aids, your danger of developing cognitive conditions including anxiety, depression, and dementia is decreased. Mental health issues like anxiety and depression can be worsened by hearing loss and any related social isolation. And there's substantial data that indicates that neglected hearing loss can raise your risk of developing cognitive issues like dementia.
Tinnitus is another situation where hearing aids can be extremely helpful. Tinnitus, which often comes along with hearing loss, is a condition where you hear sounds in your ears that aren't actually there. Many modern hearing aids not only treat hearing loss but also have some features to help minimize tinnitus symptoms.

What's The Future Of Hearing Loss?

Around the world, hearing loss is becoming a more urgent problem because of the prevalence of technology like earbuds for personal listening and the increase of noise pollution. It’s clear that every year, millions of new people will be impacted by hearing loss.

Health concerns that are associated with hearing loss can best be managed by getting treatment as early as possible. Contact us right away to make an appointment for a hearing test.