The human body is a wonderful, breathtaking, confusing, confounding construction, isn’t it? The human body typically has no difficulty repairing cuts, scrapes, or broken bones (with a bit of time, your body can heal the giant bones in your arms and legs).
But when it comes to mending the tiny little hairs in your ear, you’re out of luck. For now at least.
It’s truly regrettable that your body can pull off such amazing feats of healing but can’t regenerate these tiny hairs. So what’s the deal?
When is Hearing Impairment Irreversible?
So let’s have a closer look. You’re at your doctor’s office attempting to digest the news he’s giving you: you’re losing your hearing. So the first question you ask is whether the hearing will ever come back. And he tells you that it may or may not.
Dramatically speaking, it’s a bit anticlimactic.
But he isn’t wrong. There are two general kinds of hearing loss:
- Obstruction induced hearing loss: You can exhibit every sign of hearing loss when your ear has some kind of blockage. This obstruction can be caused by a wide variety of things, from the gross (ear wax) to the downright frightening (tumors). Your hearing will go back to normal, thankfully, when the obstruction is removed.
- Hearing loss caused by damage: But there’s another, more prevalent type of hearing loss. This kind of hearing loss, called sensorineural hearing loss, is permanent. This is how it works: inside of your ear, there are little hairs that vibrate when moved by sound waves. Your brain is good at changing these vibrations into the sounds you hear. But over time, loud noises can cause these hairs to be damaged to the point where treatment is necessary.
So the bottom line is this: there’s one form of hearing loss you can recover from, and you might need to get examined to see which one you’re dealing with.
Treating Hearing Loss
So presently there’s no “cure” for sensorineural hearing loss (though scientists are working on it). But your hearing loss still might be treatable. Here are a few ways that the correct treatment may help you:
- Maintain a high quality of life.
- Avoid isolation by staying socially active.
- Safeguard and maintain your remaining hearing.
- Successfully manage hearing loss symptoms you might already have.
- Help ward off cognitive decline.
This treatment can take numerous forms, and it’ll normally depend on how significant your hearing loss is. One of the most prevalent treatments is fairly simple: hearing aids.
Why Are Hearing Aids a Practical Treatment For Hearing Impairment?
Hearing aids can help you return to the people and things you enjoy. They can help you hear the discussions, the phone, your television, or even just the sounds of nature. You won’t be straining to hear so pressure will be removed from your brain.
The Best Protection is Prevention
Whether you have hearing loss now or not, you need to safeguard your hearing from loud noises and other things that can damage your hearing (like ototoxic drugs). Hearing well is critical to your overall health and well-being. Having routine hearing exams is the best way to be certain that you are safeguarding your hearing.