The Recovery Ability of Your Body
The human body commonly can heal scrapes, cuts, and broken bones, although some injuries take longer than others. But when it comes to repairing the tiny little hairs in your ear, you’re out of luck. So far, at least. Animals are capable of healing 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 could have irreversible hearing loss.
When Is Hearing Loss Irreversible?
The first thing you think of when you find out you have hearing loss is, will I get it back? And the response is, it depends. There are two basic kinds of hearing loss:
- Loss of hearing caused by a blockage: You can show all the symptoms of hearing loss when there is something blocking your ear canal. This blockage can be caused by a wide variety of things, from debris to earwax to tumors. Your hearing normally returns to normal after the blockage is cleared, and that’s the good news.
- Damage based loss of hearing: But nearly 90 percent of hearing loss is accounted for by another, more common cause. This kind of hearing loss, which is often irreversible, is known as sensorineural hearing loss. This is how it works: there are tiny hairs in your ear that move when hit with moving air (sound waves). These vibrations are then turned, by your brain, into impulses that you hear as sound. But your hearing can, as time passes, be permanently harmed by loud noises. Sensorineural hearing loss can also be from injury to the nerve or to the inner ear. A cochlear implant can help improve hearing in some cases of hearing loss, specifically severe cases.
A hearing examination will help you determine whether hearing aids will help improve your hearing.
Hearing Loss Treatment
So currently there’s no cure for sensorineural hearing loss. But that’s doesn’t mean you can’t find treatment for your hearing loss. The following are some ways that getting the appropriate treatment can help you:
- Preserve and protect the hearing you still have.
- Cope successfully with the symptoms of hearing loss you may be suffering from.
- Stay involved socially, keeping isolation away.
- Stop mental decline.
- Guarantee your all-around quality of life remains high or is unaffected.
Based on how serious your loss of hearing is, this treatment can take on many forms. 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 hearing loss can use hearing aids to detect sounds and perform as effectively as possible. When your hearing is hindered, the brain struggles to hear, which can exhaust you. Over time the lack of sensory input has been linked to a greater risk of cognitive decline. Your cognitive function can start to be recovered by using hearing aids because they let your ears hear again. In fact, using hearing aids has been shown to slow cognitive decline by as much as 75%. Background noise can also be drowned out by contemporary hearing aids enabling you to concentrate on what you want to hear.
The Best Defense Is Prevention
If you take away one thing from this little lesson, hopefully, it’s 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 blocking your ear canal, you can probably have it removed. But lots of loud noises are hazardous even though you might not think they are that loud. That’s why making the effort to protect your ears is a smart plan. If you are inevitably diagnosed with hearing loss, you will have more treatment possibilities if you take measures now to protect your hearing. Recovery won’t likely be an option but treatment can help you continue living a great, full life. To find out what your best choice is, schedule an appointment with a hearing care professional.