The Healing Capacity of Your Body
The physical body typically has the ability to recuperate from cuts, scratches, and fractured bones, although the healing process might vary in duration depending on the injury.
Unfortunately, there is no fix for the fragile hair cells in your ears once they are damaged.
Up to this time, at least.
Animals can heal damage to the cilia in their ears and get their hearing back, but people don’t possess that ability (though scientists are working on it).
That means you may have an irreversible loss of hearing if you damage the hearing nerve or those tiny hairs.
When is Hearing Loss Irreversible?
Upon identifying hearing loss, the preliminary concern that frequently emerges is whether the hearing will be restored.
It is unclear if it will happen, as it depends on numerous elements.
Two primary kinds of hearing loss:
- Obstruction-based loss of hearing: When there’s something blocking your ear canal, you can experience all the symptoms of hearing loss.
Debris, earwax, and tumors are some of the things that can cause a blockage.
The good news is, your hearing normally bounces back as soon as the obstruction is eliminated. - Damage-related hearing loss: A more common form of hearing loss, responsible for about 90 percent of all instances, is triggered by damage instead of other factors.
Known clinically as sensorineural hearing loss, this form of hearing loss is often irreversible.
Here’s the way it works: tiny hairs in your ear vibrate when struck with moving air (sound waves).
Your brain changes these vibrations into auditory signals that are perceived by you as sound.
Prolonged exposure to loud noises can, however, lead to permanent damage to your hearing.
Damage to the inner ear or nerve can also cause sensorineural hearing loss.
In certain cases of extreme hearing loss, a cochlear implant may be able to improve hearing function.
A hearing test will help you identify whether hearing aids will help enhance your hearing.
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 proper treatment can help you:
- Make sure your general quality of life is unaltered or remains high.
- Effectively deal with any of the symptoms of hearing loss you might be suffering from.
- Protect your remaining hearing to prevent further damage.
- Maintain connections and community involvement to prevent feelings of loneliness and solitude.
- Stop cognitive decline.
This treatment can take many forms, and it’ll usually depend on how extreme your hearing loss is.
A typically encouraged and rather straightforward strategy is the use of hearing aids.
How is Hearing Loss Managed by Hearing Aids
Individuals experiencing hearing loss can use hearing aids to detect sounds which will allow them to function more effectively.
Tiredness is the result when the brain strains to hear.
Scientists have come to realize that extended mental inactivity presents a substantial danger to cognitive health, as new discoveries shed light on the importance of continuous mental stimulation.
Hearing aids help you recover your mental function by allowing your ears to hear again.
In fact, utilizing hearing aids has been shown to diminish mental decline by as much as 75%.
Cutting-edge hearing devices enable you to focus in on specific sounds you wish to hear while reducing background noise.
The Best Defense is Prevention
Maintaining your hearing is essential as once it’s gone, it’s usually irretrievable. Certainly, if you get something stuck in your ear canal, you can probably have it removed.
However, this doesn’t lessen the risk posed by high-volume noises, which can be damaging even if they don’t seem overly loud to you.
That’s why making the effort to protect your ears is a smart plan.
The better you protect your hearing now, the more treatment possibilities you’ll have when and if you are eventually diagnosed with hearing loss.
Treatment can help you live a wonderful, full life even if a cure isn’t a possibility.
Speak with our expert audiologist to determine the most suitable solution for your specific hearing needs.