The Recovery Capacity of Your Body
The physical body normally has the ability to recover from cuts, scratches, and fractured bones, although the healing process may vary in duration depending on the damage.
Unfortunately, there is no fix for the fragile hair cells in your ears once they become damaged.
Up to this time, at least.
Animals can repair damage to the cilia in their ears and get their hearing back, but humans don’t have that ability (although scientists are tackling it).
That means you may have a permanent loss of hearing if you damage the hearing nerve or those little hairs.
When is Hearing Loss Permanent?
The initial thing you think about when you learn you have hearing loss is whether it will return.
It is unclear if it will happen, as it is dependent on various elements.
Two principal types of hearing loss:
- Obstruction-based hearing loss: When there’s something obstructing your ear canal, you can experience all the symptoms of hearing loss.
Earwax, debris, and abnormal growths can potentially block the ear canal.
Your hearing normally returns to normal after the blockage is cleared, and that’s the good news. - Damage-related hearing loss: A more prevalent type of hearing impairment, responsible for roughly 90 percent of all instances, is triggered by damage rather than other factors.
This distinct kind of hearing loss, known as sensorineural hearing loss in scientific terms, is typically irreversible.
The hearing process is triggered by the impact of moving air on tiny hairs in the ear which send sound waves to the brain.
These vibrations are then modified, by your brain, into signals that you perceive 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 trigger sensorineural hearing loss.
A cochlear implant can help reestablish hearing in some cases of hearing loss, specifically in severe cases.
A hearing test can help in determining if hearing aids would improve your hearing ability.
Solutions for Enhancing Your Hearing
There is presently no cure for sensorineural hearing loss.
Treatment for your hearing loss may, however, be a possibility.
Advantages of proper treatment for your wellness:
- Preserve a good general standard of living and well-being.
- Effectively address any symptoms of hearing loss that you may be encountering.
- Protect your remaining hearing to avoid added damage.
- Preserve relations and community participation to avoid feelings of isolation and disconnection.
- Prevent cognitive decline.
This treatment can take many forms, and it’ll generally be dependent on how severe your hearing loss is.
A typically recommended and rather straightforward solution is the use of hearing aids.
How is Hearing Loss Managed by Hearing Aids
Individuals who cope with hearing loss can use hearing aids to help them perceive sounds, allowing them to work as efficiently as possible.
Fatigue occurs when the brain has to work harder to process sound.
Researchers have come to realize that prolonged mental inactivity poses a considerable risk to mental health, as new findings clarify the value of continuous mental stimulation.
Hearing aids help you recover your mental function by allowing your ears to hear again.
As a matter of fact, using hearing aids has been shown to slow cognitive decline by as much as 75%.
Modern hearing devices enable you to concentrate on particular sounds you want to hear while decreasing background noise.
The Best Protection is Prevention
If you take away one thing from this little lesson, hopefully, it’s this: you should safeguard the hearing you have because you can’t count 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 lessen the danger posed by loud sounds that you might not think are loud enough to be all that hazardous.
That’s why making the effort to protect your ears is a good plan.
The better you safeguard your hearing today, the more treatment potential you’ll have when and if you are inevitably diagnosed with hearing loss.
Treatment can help you live a wonderful, full life even if a cure isn’t a possibility.
To identify what your best choice is, schedule an appointment with our hearing care experts.