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Hearing Loss Treatment

Hearing Specialists

Hearing loss can have a significant impact on your life.

Whatever the cause, the symptoms can lead to many problems such as difficulty engaging in conversation, problems sleeping, headaches, and depression. Understanding the causes of your hearing loss is essential to informing the possible treatment plan, which is why a consultation with one of our HCPC registered Audiologists would be advised.

The Different types of Hearing Loss

Before thinking about hearing loss treatment, it’s essential to find out what type of hearing loss you have. There are three primary categories that hearing loss is broken down into; conductive, sensorineural, and mixed hearing loss.

What Is Conductive Hearing Loss?

Conductive hearing loss is generally caused by an issue in either the middle ear or the outer. This can cause difficulty in transmitting sound signals to the cochlea, ultimately making your hearing worse. There are many potential causes for this:

If you’re born with an absent or abnormally developed outer ear, it can contribute because it means that sound isn’t able to effectively travel through the ear canal to hit the ear drum.

Wax/Foreign Object – Can act as a plug inside the ear, preventing sound from reaching the eardrum. For example, cotton buds are a common contributor to ear wax build-up that will need to be removed by a specialist.

Caused by mucus being unable to leave the ear via its standard path of the Eustachian tube, accumulating and ultimately potentially causing a ruptured eardrum that allows the fluid to free itself.

A hole in the eardrum may cause poor membrane movement, meaning vibrations cannot be transmitted as effectively to the ossicles, which can result from infection, trauma, or rapid pressure changes.

Occurs as a result of stapes fixation due to bone overgrowth at the base, causing difficulty in transmitting sound waves between the stapes and the cochlea. However, surgery or hearing aids are viable treatments. Cholesteatoma – A ‘retraction pocket’ can form if the eardrum has been weakened enough to cause an accumulation of abnormal skin cells, which as they grow can potentially invade and erode essential structures in the inner ear.

A ‘retraction pocket’ can form if the eardrum has been weakened enough to cause an accumulation of abnormal skin cells, which as they grow can potentially invade and erode essential structures in the inner ear.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

This is usually caused by some nerve damage to the cochlea or elsewhere along the auditory nerve. Causes can be:

Hearing loss may be present at birth or manifest later in life due to genetics, such as autosomal dominant gene, autosomal recessive gene, or X-linked recessive genes, even if both parents have normal hearing.

Certain medications or treatments may list temporary or permanent hearing loss as known side effects. Things like aspirin, loop diuretics, cisplatin and carboplatin, and quinine can all cause possible issues.

This can be present in either one or both ears and is considered a pressing medical emergency, so if you ever experience sudden hearing loss, it’s essential you visit your closest medical centre for treatment.

The hair cells inside your cochlea may experience general degradation over the years, which you may be able to identify by experiencing poorer hearing with higher pitches but better hearing for lower pitches.

Excess noise levels can cause either partial or complete hearing damage on a temporary or permanent level. Common causes include exposure to loud music and environments or working with noisy equipment professionally.

Can Your Hearing Loss Be Treated?

Your hearing loss treatment plan will depend on the causes, severity, and length of time you have been experiencing symptoms. In certain situations, it may be possible to reverse the process and restore your hearing completely. In others, a complete cure may not be achievable, but effective treatment of your symptoms will be.

Whatever the case, your treatment effectiveness will depend on how quickly you seek it. So if you feel anything is even slightly amiss with your hearing, book a consultation with our friendly and experienced hearing professionals today.

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