The Healing Ability of Your Body
The human body typically has the ability to recuperate from cuts, scrapes, and broken bones, although the recovery process might vary in duration depending on the injury.
But you’re out of luck when it concerns restoring the tiny 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 people don’t possess that ability (although scientists are tackling it).
If you harm the hearing nerves or the tiny hairs, you could experience irreversible hearing loss.
At What Point Does Hearing Loss Become Irreversible?
Upon identifying hearing loss, the first worry that typically arises is whether the hearing will be restored.
Whether it will or not is dependent on a variety of things.
Two principal kinds of hearing loss:
- Blockage-related hearing loss: If your ear canal is partly or entirely blocked, it can mirror the symptoms of hearing loss.
Debris, earwax, and tumors are a few of the things that can cause a blockage.
The good news is, your hearing generally recovers as soon as the blockage is removed. - Hearing loss caused by damage: But there’s another, more prevalent kind of hearing loss that accounts for around 90 percent of hearing loss.
Known clinically as sensorineural hearing loss, this form of hearing loss is usually permanent.
Here’s the way it works: tiny hairs in your ear vibrate when struck with moving air (sound waves).
Your brain converts 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.
Sensorineural hearing loss can also be caused by damage to the inner ear or nerve.
In certain cases of extreme hearing loss, a cochlear implant might be able to enhance hearing function.
A hearing test will help you identify whether hearing aids will help improve your hearing.
Solutions for Enhancing Your Hearing
Sensorineural hearing loss presently has no cure.
Treatment for your hearing loss may, however, be a possibility.
The following are a number of ways that obtaining the right treatment can help you:
- Preserve a good general standard of living and well-being.
- Effectively deal with any of the symptoms of hearing loss you might be experiencing.
- Preserve and safeguard the hearing you still have.
- Maintain connections and community involvement to avoid feelings of isolation and disconnection.
- Stop cognitive decline.
This treatment can take many forms, and it’ll normally be dependent on how extreme your hearing loss is.
One of the most common treatment solutions is rather simple: hearing aids.
What Role do Hearing Aids Play in Dealing With Hearing Impairment?
Individuals who cope with hearing loss can use hearing aids to help them perceive sounds, allowing them to work as effectively as they can.
Tiredness occurs when the brain needs to work harder to process sound.
As researchers develop more insights, they have identified a greater threat of cognitive decline with a persistent lack of cognitive stimulation.
Your mental function can start to be restored by using hearing aids because they let your ears hear again.
Research has revealed that wearing hearing aids can dramatically slow cognitive decline, with some studies suggesting a reduction of up to 75%.
Modern hearing aids will also allow you to focus on 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 protect the hearing you have because you can’t count on recovering from hearing loss. Certainly, if you get something stuck in your ear canal, you can most likely have it cleared.
However, this doesn’t reduce the risk posed by high-volume sounds, which can be harmful even if they don’t seem excessively loud to you.
So taking steps to protect your hearing is a good plan.
If you are ever diagnosed with hearing loss in the future, you will have more treatment possibilities if you take measures to safeguard your hearing now.
Treatment can help you live a wonderful, full life even if a cure isn’t a possibility.
To identify what your best option is, schedule an appointment with our hearing care experts.
