Your Body’s Capacity to Heal
While some wounds take longer to heal than others, the human body normally has no issue healing cuts, scrapes, or broken bones. But when it comes to repairing the tiny little hairs in your ear, you’re out of luck. So far, at least. 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.
At What Point Does Hearing Loss Become Irreversible?
When you find out you have hearing loss, the first thing that most people think is will it come back? Whether it will or not depends on many factors. There are two basic types of loss of hearing:
- Damage based loss of hearing: But there’s another, more prevalent type of hearing loss that makes up nearly 90 percent of hearing loss. Known technically as sensorineural hearing loss, this form of hearing loss is usually irreversible. This is how it works: When hit by moving air (sound waves), tiny little hairs in your ears move. These vibrations are then changed, by your brain, into impulses that you hear as sound. But your hearing can, over time, be permanently damaged by loud noises. Damage to the inner ear or nerve can also cause sensorineural hearing loss. A cochlear implant may help improve hearing in some cases of hearing loss, specifically extreme cases.
- Obstruction based loss of hearing: When there’s something obstructing your ear canal, you can show all the symptoms of hearing loss. Debris, earwax, and tumors are some of the things that can cause an obstruction. The good news is that once the obstruction is cleared your hearing usually returns to normal.
A hearing exam will help you determine whether hearing aids will help improve your hearing.
Treatment of Hearing Loss
Sensorineural hearing loss presently has no cure. But that’s not to say you can’t get treatment for your hearing loss. actually, getting the correct treatment for your loss of hearing can help you:
- Stop cognitive decline.
- Protect and preserve the hearing you still have.
- Keep isolation away by staying socially engaged.
- Guarantee your all-around quality of life remains high or is unaffected.
- Cope successfully with any of the symptoms of hearing loss you may be experiencing.
This treatment can have many forms, and it’ll usually depend on how extreme your hearing loss is. One of the most basic treatments is also one of the most common: hearing aids.
Why Are Hearing Aids an effective Treatment for Hearing Loss?
Hearing aids assist the ear with hearing loss to hear sounds and perform to the best of their ability. When your hearing is hampered, the brain strains to hear, which can exhaust you. As scientist gain more knowledge, they have identified an increased danger of cognitive decline with a persistent lack of cognitive input. Your cognitive function can begin to be restored by using hearing aids because they allow your ears hear again. In fact, it has been shown that using hearing aids can slow cognitive decline by as much as 75%. Modern day hearing aids can also allow you to pay attention to what you want to hear, and drown out background sounds.
The Best Defense Is Prevention
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 safeguarding the hearing you have. Certainly, if you get something stuck in your ear canal, more than likely you can have it cleared. But that doesn’t decrease the danger from loud sounds, noises you may not even consider to be loud enough to really be all that harmful. That’s why making the effort to safeguard your ears is a smart idea. If you are inevitably diagnosed with hearing loss, you will have more treatment possibilities if you take steps now to protect your hearing. Treatment can help you live a great, full life even if recovery isn’t an option. To find out what your best option is, schedule an appointment with a hearing care professional.