How Your Body Rebounds From Injury and Illness
The human body can usually repair scrapes, cuts, and fractured bones, though some injuries take longer than others.
Unfortunately, there is no cure for the delicate hair cells in your ears once they are damaged.
At least thus far.
Animals can heal damage to the cilia in their ears and get their hearing back, but people don’t possess that ability (although scientists are tackling it).
That means you could have an irreversible loss of hearing if you damage the hearing nerve or those little hairs.
At What Point Does Hearing Loss Become Permanent?
Upon identifying hearing loss, the first worry that typically emerges is whether the hearing will be restored.
Whether it will or not is dependent on a variety of factors.
Two primary forms of hearing loss:
- Blockage-related hearing loss: If your ear canal is partly or completely obstructed, it can mirror the symptoms of hearing loss.
Earwax, debris, and irregular growths can potentially obstruct the ear canal.
The good news is, your hearing generally bounces back as soon as the obstruction is cleared away. - Damage-related hearing loss: A more prevalent type of hearing loss, responsible for roughly 90 percent of all instances, is caused by damage instead of other factors.
This distinct type of hearing loss, referred to as sensorineural hearing loss in medical terms, is usually permanent.
The hearing process is triggered by the impact of moving air on tiny hairs in the ear which send sound waves to the brain.
Your brain changes these vibrations into auditory signals that are heard by you as sound.
But your hearing can, over time, be permanently harmed by loud noises.
Damage to the inner ear or nerve can also trigger sensorineural hearing loss.
In some instances of extreme hearing loss, a cochlear implant might have the ability to enhance hearing function.
A hearing examination can help in identifying if hearing aids would improve your hearing ability.
Treatment of Hearing Loss
There is presently no cure for sensorineural hearing loss.
But it might be possible to obtain effective treatment.
The following are a number of ways that obtaining the right treatment can help you:
- Ensure your general quality of life is unaffected or remains high.
- Successfully manage any of the symptoms of hearing loss you might be suffering from.
- Preserve and safeguard the hearing you still have.
- Keep solitude away by staying socially engaged.
- Stop cognitive decline.
This treatment can take many forms, and it’ll usually depend on how severe your hearing loss is.
A frequently recommended and rather straightforward solution is the use of hearing aids.
How is Hearing Loss Managed by Hearing Aids
People who cope with hearing loss can use hearing aids to help them perceive sounds, allowing them to work as efficiently as they can.
Tiredness is the consequence when the brain struggles to hear.
Scientists have come to recognize that extended mental inactivity poses a significant risk to cognitive health, as new findings shed light on the value of ongoing mental stimulation.
Your mental function can begin to be restored by using hearing aids because they let your ears hear again.
In fact, using hearing aids has been shown to slow mental decline by as much as 75%.
Contemporary hearing aids will also allow you to pay attention to what you want to hear while tuning out background sounds.
Prevention is The Best Protection
If you take away one thing from this article, hopefully, it’s this: you should safeguard the hearing you have because you can’t depend on recuperating from hearing loss. If an object becomes wedged in your ear canal, it can likely be safely cleared out.
But that doesn’t reduce the danger posed by loud noises that you may not think are loud enough to be all that harmful.
That’s why making the effort to protect your ears is a smart idea.
If you are ever diagnosed with hearing loss in the future, you will have more treatment options if you take measures to protect your hearing now.
Receiving treatment can allow you to live a fulfilling life, even if total recovery is not achievable.
Talk with our expert audiologist to discover the most practical solution for your specific hearing requirements.