The Healing Ability of Your Body

While some injuries take longer to heal than others, the human body normally has no issue healing cuts, scrapes, or broken bones. But when it comes to repairing the tiny little hairs in your ear, you’re out of luck. At least, so far. Though scientists are working on it, humans can’t repair the cilia in their ears in the same way animals can. What that means is, if you damage these hairs or the hearing nerve, you may have permanent loss of hearing.

When Is Hearing Loss Irreversible?

The first question you think of when you learn you have hearing loss is, will I get it back? Whether it will or not depends on several factors. Fundamentally, there are two types of hearing loss:

• Loss of hearing caused by damage: But around 90 percent of hearing loss is accounted for by another, more common cause. Known medically as sensorineural hearing loss, this form of hearing loss is often irreversible. Here’s what takes place: there are little hairs in your ear that vibrate when hit by moving air (sound waves). Your brain is good at turning these vibrations into the sounds you can hear. But your hearing can, over time, be permanently damaged by loud noises. Sensorineural hearing loss can also be from injury to the nerve or to the inner ear. A cochlear implant can help restore hearing in some cases of hearing loss, specifically extreme cases.
• Hearing loss caused by a blockage: You can show all the signs of hearing loss when there is something blocking your ear canal. This blockage can be caused by a wide variety of things, from earwax to debris to tumors. Your hearing usually returns to normal after the blockage is cleared, and that’s the good news.

A hearing test will help you determine whether hearing aids will help restore your hearing.

Hearing Loss Treatment

Sensorineural hearing loss currently has no cure. But it may be possible to get treatment for your hearing loss. actually, getting the proper treatment for your loss of hearing can help you:

• Protect and preserve the hearing you still have.
• Make sure your general quality of life is unaffected or remains high.
• Keep isolation away by staying socially engaged.
• Successfully deal with the symptoms of hearing loss you may be experiencing.
• Prevent cognitive decline.

Based on how serious your loss of hearing is, this treatment can have many forms. One of the most basic treatments is also one of the most common: hearing aids.

Why Are Hearing Aids a Good Treatment for Hearing Loss?

People who have hearing loss can use hearing aids to perceive sounds and perform as effectively as they can. Fatigue is caused when the brain struggles to hear because hearing is hampered. As time passes the lack of sensory input has been associated with a greater chance of cognitive decline. Your cognitive function can start to be restored by using hearing aids because they allow your ears hear again. As a matter of fact, wearing hearing aids has been demonstrated to slow cognitive decline by as much as 75%. Background noise can also be tuned out by modern-day hearing aids enabling you to concentrate on what you want to hear.

The Best Protection Is Prevention

Hopefully, if you take one thing away from this knowledge, it this: you can’t count on recovering from loss of hearing, so instead you should focus on safeguarding the hearing you’ve got. Certainly, you can have any blockages in your ear removed. But that doesn’t mitigate the risk from loud noises, noises you might not even consider to be loud enough to be all that harmful. That’s the reason why making the effort to protect your ears is a good plan. The better you protect 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 professional.