Your Wonderful Ears
Article Source: HealthSnare.com
Turn down the stereo, go easy with cotton swabs, and read my sound advice to save your hearing. Next time you're out running errands, make sure to hit a store where you can purchase a pair of earplugs. On a weekend day, put them in and you will learn that when you have trouble hearing, even everyday tasks are harder to do. Just talking with a friend becomes hard. Listening to the radio is out, watching TV is a chore.
You'll find that you can't even sense movement in your own home, as you won't hear doors opening, air conditioners starting up, or the oven timer going off. You have just experienced auditory isolation, but a loss of hearing can be prevented for a lot of folks.
The first of two kinds of hearing loss is called conductive. Audio is not making its way properly - or being conducted - to the inner ear, which is where our brain actually distinguishes sounds. The other type concerns sound passing through the ear unhindered, but being misunderstood or perceived weakly once it reaches your inner ear. This is called 'sensorineural loss'. When tiny fibers in the inner ear are damaged, the nerves that communicate with the brain stop working properly. This kind of hearing loss is called tinnitus, and comes with a buzzing or ringing sound.
There are special tests that can be administered and interpreted by either an audiology specialist or your regular general practitioner. There are hearing tests that are used to confirm a doctor's diagnosis for conductive hearing loss and treatments can range from the very simple, such as ear wax removal, to something more extreme, such as surgery on the bones in your middle ear.
Treatment for sensorineural hearing loss might involve an external hearing aid, or internal cochlear implants, depending on the individual patient and physical source of the problem.
If you want to avoid any of these treatments, use this article as a guideline to what hurts your hearing. Usually, hearing loss is caused by an overload of the senses. Generally, when you find it necessary to shout above the general noise in the area you are in, you should cover your ears using headphones or earplugs, or remove yourself from the situation.
Those who have spent their lives listening to loud music will suffer a lifetime of impeded hearing. People who served in the military or like to hunt or shoot guns without protecting the ears usually have problems with hearing.
Tumors that have not been detected, or infections that have not been treated properly will lead to damage in later years. By age 55, 20% of people have hearing loss. By 65, 33% are affected, the good news is that age-related hearing, hearing loss typically doesn't lead to complete deafness.
Acoustic neuroma is a benign tumor that can damage the hearing nerve and result in hearing loss in on ear. Although this type of tumor grows very gradually, left unchecked, it can still lead to deafness. Removal of the tumor is the only effective treatment. There are quite a few people who spend years suffering from stubborn ear infections connected to such diseases as measles, scarlet fever, meningitis, and mumps. These are all illnesses that can provoke the onset of hearing loss. These are issues you must share with your doctor.
Anything that ends up blocking the ear canal, be it bones or a non-functioning ear canal, will obstruct the flow of sounds. I have often seen patients who take an aggressive approach using cotton swabs to clean their ears, thinking they're removing wax while actually pushing it further down in the ear canal. You can gently clean the ear with Q-tips, but if you experience a lot of wax, you should visit a physician for suggestions on how to get rid of it safely. On occasion, the bones in the middle ear harden, or liquid from an allergy or infection accumulates.
Damage can even be caused by use of some medications including certain antibiotics, treatment for malaria, anti-arrhythmics or even aspirin, but also due to an exposure to trauma or pressure. We often cannot avoid trauma. People have had their hearing damaged from an injury which caused a hole to be poked in their eardrum. If someone sustains a fracture to the skull, damage to the hearing can be a side effect. The sound from gunfire or fireworks can wreck havoc. Sometimes there is trauma created by pressure on the ear drum. For example, pressurized airplane cabins or going diving underwater can cause damage to your hearing long term.
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Andrew Roberts
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Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2010 Time: 4:37 AM
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