Your Body’s Capacity to Heal
While some wounds take longer to heal than others, the human body usually has no issue mending 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 heal the cilia in their ears in the same way animals can. That means you may have irreversible hearing loss if you injure the hearing nerve or those little hairs.
At What Point Does Loss of Hearing Become Irreversible?
When you learn you have loss of hearing, the first thing that most people think is will it come back? Whether it will or not depends on a number of things. Basically, there are two types of hearing loss:
- Hearing loss caused by a blockage: When there’s something blocking your ear canal, you can show all the signs of hearing loss. Debris, earwax, and tumors are just a few of the things that can cause an obstruction. What’s promising is that after the blockage is cleared your hearing often goes back to normal.
- Loss of hearing caused by damage: But there’s another, more common type of hearing loss that makes up nearly 90 percent of hearing loss. Known medically as sensorineural hearing loss, this form of hearing loss is often permanent. Here’s what takes place: there are tiny hairs in your ear that vibrate when hit with moving air (sound waves). Your brain is good at turning these vibrations into the sounds you can hear. But loud noises can damage the hairs and, over time, permanently diminish your hearing. Sensorineural hearing loss can also be from injury to the nerve or to the inner ear. A cochlear implant may help restore hearing in some cases of hearing loss, particularly extreme cases.
Whether hearing aids will help improve your hearing can only be figured out by getting a hearing exam.
Treatment of Hearing Loss
Sensorineural hearing loss currently has no cure. But that’s doesn’t mean you can’t get treatment for your hearing loss. In fact, getting the proper treatment for your loss of hearing can help you:
- Successfully deal with any of the symptoms of hearing loss you may be suffering from.
- Stop cognitive decline.
- Guarantee your general quality of life remains high or is unaffected.
- Keep isolation away by staying socially engaged.
- Protect and preserve the hearing you have left.
Based on how severe your loss of hearing is, this procedure can have many kinds. One of the most basic treatments is also one of the most common: hearing aids.
Why Are Hearing Aids a Good Treatment for Hearing Loss?
People who have loss of hearing can use hearing aids to detect sounds and perform as efficiently as they can. Fatigue is the result when the brain struggles to hear because hearing is hindered. As scientist acquire more insights, they have identified a greater chance of mental decline with a continued lack of cognitive input. By letting your ears to hear again, hearing aids assist the restoration of cognitive performance. as a matter of fact, it has been demonstrated that wearing hearing aids can slow cognitive decline by as much as 75%. Modern hearing aids will also allow you to pay attention to what you want to hear, and drown out background noises.
The Best Protection Is Prevention
Hopefully, if you get one thing from this information, it this: you can’t count on recovering from loss of hearing, so instead you should concentrate on safeguarding the hearing you have. Sure, if you get something stuck in your ear canal, you can probably have it extracted. But many loud noises are dangerous even though you may not think they are that loud. That’s the reason why making the effort to protect your ears is a good idea. The better you safeguard your hearing now, the more treatment possibilities you’ll have if and when you are eventually diagnosed with loss of hearing. Treatment can help you live a great, full life even if recovery isn’t an option. Schedule an appointment with a hearing care expert to find out what your best option is.