How Your Body Recovers From Injury and Sickness
The human body generally has the ability to recuperate from cuts, scratches, and fractured bones, although the recovery process might differ in duration depending on the injury.
But you’re out of luck when it concerns repairing the little hairs in your ears.
At least thus far.
Animals can heal damage to the cilia in their ears and get their hearing back, but humans don’t possess that ability (although scientists are working on it).
That means you might have a permanent loss of hearing if you damage the hearing nerve or those little hairs.
When is Hearing Loss Permanent?
The first thing you think about when you learn you have hearing loss is whether it can come back.
Whether it will or not depends on a number of factors.
There are a couple of basic types of hearing loss:
- Blockage-related hearing loss: If your ear canal is partially or completely obstructed, it can mimic the symptoms of hearing loss.
Debris, earwax, and growths are a few of the things that can cause a blockage.
The good news is, your hearing typically bounces back as soon as the blockage is eliminated. - Hearing loss caused by damage: But there’s another, more widespread kind of hearing loss that accounts for approximately 90 percent of hearing loss.
This distinct form of hearing loss, known as sensorineural hearing loss in scientific terms, is typically permanent.
Here’s how it works: tiny hairs in your ear vibrate when hit with moving air (sound waves).
Your brain transforms these vibrations into auditory signals that are heard by you as sound.
Prolonged exposure to loud noises can, however, lead to permanent damage to your hearing.
Injury to the inner ear or nerve can also lead to sensorineural hearing loss.
A cochlear implant can help bring back hearing in some instances of hearing loss, particularly in severe cases.
A hearing examination can help in identifying if hearing aids would improve your hearing ability.
Solutions for Improving Your Hearing
Sensorineural hearing loss presently has no cure.
But it may be possible to obtain effective treatment.
Advantages of proper treatment for your well-being:
- Make sure your overall quality of life is unaltered or remains high.
- Effectively address any symptoms of hearing loss that you may be encountering.
- Protect your remaining hearing to prevent added damage.
- Maintain connections and community involvement to avoid feelings of loneliness and disconnection.
- Stop mental decline.
This treatment can take many forms, and it’ll typically depend on how severe your hearing loss is.
One of the most common treatment solutions is fairly simple: hearing aids.
What Part do Hearing Aids Play in Managing Hearing Loss?
People who have hearing loss can use hearing aids to help them perceive sounds, allowing them to work as effectively as possible.
Fatigue is the consequence when the brain strains to hear.
Researchers have come to realize that extended mental inactivity poses a substantial danger to cognitive health, as new discoveries shed light on the importance of ongoing mental stimulation.
Your cognitive function can begin to be recovered by using hearing aids because they help your ears hear again.
In fact, using hearing aids has been shown to slow down cognitive decline by as much as 75%.
Cutting-edge hearing devices enable you to focus in on particular sounds you want to hear while reducing background noise.
The Best Protection is Prevention
Preserving your hearing is essential as once it’s gone, it’s often permanent. Certainly, if you get something stuck in your ear canal, you can most likely have it removed.
However, this doesn’t diminish the danger posed by loud noises, which can be harmful even if they don’t seem overly loud to you.
That’s why making the effort to safeguard your ears is a good plan.
If you are ever diagnosed with hearing loss later in life, you will have more treatment options if you take measures to safeguard your hearing now.
Treatment can help you live a great, full life even if a cure isn’t possible.
To identify what your best choice is, make an appointment with our hearing care specialist.
