The Recovery Ability of Your Body
While some wounds take longer to heal than others, the human body usually has no problem 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. Animals are capable of healing damage to the cilia in their ears and get their hearing back, but humans don’t have that ability (even though scientists are working on it). That means, if you ruin these hairs or the hearing nerve, you may have permanent loss of hearing.
At What Point Does Hearing Loss Become Permanent?
The first question you think of when you find out you have loss of hearing is, will I get it back? And the answer is, it depends. There are two basic kinds of loss of hearing:
- Damage based loss of hearing: But there’s another, more widespread kind of hearing loss that accounts for nearly 90 percent of hearing loss. This sort of hearing loss, which is often irreversible, is known as sensorineural hearing loss. This is how it works: When hit by moving air (sound waves), tiny little hairs in your ears move. These vibrations are then turned, by your brain, into impulses that you hear as sound. But loud sounds can damage the hairs and, over time, permanently diminish your hearing. Injury to the inner ear or nerve can also cause sensorineural hearing loss. In some cases, especially in instances of extreme hearing loss, a cochlear implant could help improve hearing.
- Obstruction based loss of hearing: You can show all the symptoms of hearing loss when there is something blocking your ear canal. Debris, earwax, and tumors are some of the things that can cause a blockage. The good news is that once the blockage is cleared your hearing often goes back to normal.
Whether hearing aids will help restore your hearing can only be figured out by getting a hearing test.
Hearing Loss Treatment
So currently there’s no cure for sensorineural hearing loss. But it might be possible to get treatment for your loss of hearing. The following are some ways that getting the appropriate treatment can help you:
- Cope successfully with the symptoms of hearing loss you might be suffering from.
- Make sure your general quality of life remains high or is unaffected.
- Protect and preserve the hearing you have left.
- Keep isolation away by staying socially engaged.
- Prevent mental decline.
Based on how serious your hearing loss is, this procedure can take on many forms. One of the most common treatments is fairly simple: hearing aids.
How is Hearing Loss Treated by Hearing Aids
People who have hearing loss can use hearing aids to perceive sounds and perform as efficiently as they can. Fatigue is the result when the brain struggles to hear because hearing is hindered. As scientist gain more knowledge, they have identified an increased chance of mental decline with a persistent lack of cognitive input. By letting your ears to hear again, hearing aids assist the restoration of cognitive function. as a matter of fact, it has been demonstrated that wearing hearing aids can slow cognitive decline by as much as 75%. Contemporary hearing aids can also allow you to concentrate on what you want to hear, and tune out background sounds.
Prevention is The Best Defense
Hopefully, if you take one thing away from this information, it this: you can’t count on recovering from hearing loss, so instead you should concentrate on protecting the hearing you have. Certainly, you can have any blockages in your ear cleared. But that doesn’t mitigate 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 strategy to take the time to safeguard your ears. The better you safeguard your hearing today, the more treatment possibilities you’ll have if and when you are eventually diagnosed with hearing loss. Treatment can help you live a great, full life even if recovery isn’t a possibility. To determine what your best option is, make an appointment with a hearing care specialist.