Hearing Loss: Causes, Types & Treatment Solutions

When you start noticing that there is something wrong with your hearing sense, you are bound to get concerned, regardless of your actual age. Sure, this might be relatively common among older people, but that certainly doesn’t mean that it will be easier to accept. In addition to that, the elderly are certainly not the only ones affected by hearing issues, meaning that younger people can develop those problems.

In any case, upon noticing that you have trouble hearing, what do you think will be the first thing you’ll do? Most likely, you will visit a doctor, and they’ll diagnose you. While analyzing you, they are bound to mention a few terms that you might or might not understand, such as the types of hearing loss you are experiencing and similar things. That will make you rather curious, and there’s no doubt that you will want to learn about the different types.

These experts will also provide you with a solution to your problem, but that will hardly be enough for you to satisfy your curiosity, which is precisely why you are here right now, trying to learn more about hearing loss in general. Of course, you might also be here even before visiting those experts, which is entirely legitimate since you want to get more thoroughly informed. Yet, you will need to schedule your appointment with a hearing specialist, no matter how well you’ll get notified about your specific condition.

In any case, I do respect your decision to get acquainted adequately with hearing loss issues, which is why I have decided to talk about the three most important things regarding these impairments today. Those are the causes, the types, and the treatment solutions. Let us take it one step at a time and start with checking out the actual causes of these problems.

Causes

While the causes most certainly differ among different types, as you will see later, there are undoubtedly some general reasons why your hearing might get impaired, and now we are going to take a look at those. Of course, once we start talking about the different types, I will tell you about the specific things that can cause those specific hearing loss types. Yet, let us not get ahead of ourselves.

Various factors can cause hearing loss, but aging and exposure to loud noises are high on the list of most common causes. Head trauma, certain viruses, as well as ototoxicity can also be the reasons for these impairments. On top of that, we cannot fail to mention that genetics can also play a huge role here, meaning that you have higher chances of developing this condition if someone in your family has already had it.

Before we explain the different types of hearing loss, I want you to understand that there are also various degrees of this condition. If you have the mild one, it means that you might be having difficulties with soft sounds, while speech usually won’t be an issue. If the problem is of moderate degree, you will start having trouble understanding people when they talk in a normal voice. Severe loss is when you have concerns about hearing even when people are talking in loud voices and when you can only hear some deafening sounds, while the profound degree prevents you from hearing any speech at all.

You might want to read more about deafness and these impairments: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/249285

Types

Now that you understand the general causes of this condition and now that you know that there are various degrees of hearing loss that you can be affected by, it’s time to start talking about the different types. The first thing you should know is that there are three types of hearing loss. Those are the sensorineural, conductive, and mixed types. We are now going to look at all of them individually in more detail and then proceed to check out the treatment processes. So, let’s get started.

1. Sensorineural

The sensorineural type is undoubtedly the most common one. It is a nerve-related hearing loss since it occurs when the inner ear nerves and hair cells are damaged. This type impacts the pathway from your inner ear to your actual brain. It cannot be reversed or treated with medications or specific medical procedures, but there are hearing aids that can help patients regain this sense.

Different issues can cause the sensorineural type. These include aging, long-term exposure to loud noises, head trauma and injuries, viruses, diabetes, obesity, tumors, and many more factors. Certain ototoxic drugs can also be the cause of this hearing loss. As mentioned above, this condition is irreversible, yet it is preventable, which means that you can take certain measures to avoid developing these specific conditions.

If you suspect that you have this condition, the best thing to do would be to visit a doctor immediately and let the expert confirm that for you. Since the situation cannot be reversed, your best bet will be to find the perfect aid you can wear to regain this sense. If you take your time to go to Audien Hearing, you will realize that getting access to these aids isn’t that difficult today and that you have a lot of different options on the market, one of which is undoubtedly going to work for you. Just make sure to find a high-quality product and, of course, consult your doctors about it. 

2. Conductive

The conductive type is a bit different from the first one because it can be treated with certain medications or surgically. It is usually the result of certain obstructions in the outer or the middle ear. The obstacles can be fluid, earwax, or even tumors and general ear formation. Those obstructions prevent sounds from entering your inner ear, which is why you will experience hearing loss.

There are quite a lot of different things that can cause this specific problem. Ear infections and wax buildup are probably the most common ones. In addition to that, the dislocation of the middle ear bones and otosclerosis can cause the problem. Foreign objects in the ear canal and certain abnormal growths and tumors can also lead to conductive hearing loss.

As already mentioned above, this condition can be treated with certain medications or surgical procedures. This means that you can completely regain your sense after undergoing certain medical procedures or taking specific drugs. In any case, your doctor will be the judge of that, and he or she will know precisely what you need to have done to regain the sense and resolve this specific problem. So, once again, visiting a specialist is unavoidable in this case.

3. Mixed

We need to talk about only one more type before we explain the general process of treating your hearing loss problem (more info). That’s the one known as mixed. As the name says, this is a combination of the sensorineural and the conductive types, which means that both your outer or middle and your inner ear can be damaged in this case.

This further means that the causes can be the same as in the first two types. Furthermore, the treatment processes are also the same. Yet, audiologists recommend that the conductive component gets treated first, which is entirely logical since this is the reversible type. After you get that taken care of, you can proceed to have the sensorineural type checked out. That’s when you will probably get recommended a hearing aid that will be able to help you.

Treatment

If you have been paying close attention to what I was saying above, you already know that different types of hearing loss require other treatment processes. Yet, let me sum things up for you so that you know precisely what you might be able to expect when you visit a specialist. The bottom line is that certain losses are reversible, while others aren’t, which means that the treatment processes differ under that.

Now, if you fall into the category of people who are hard of hearing, this does not mean that you are without solutions or resources. The importance of hard of hearing services cannot be overstated, as these specialized services are geared towards assisting those with mild to severe hearing loss. These services often include a range of solutions, such as the provision of hearing aids, assistive listening devices, and cochlear implants, as well as other therapeutic options like speech-language pathology.

The reversible ones can be treated by certain medications, as well as surgical procedures. That primarily depends on the cause of the problem. As you might have guessed yourself, wax buildup will require a different treatment process than, say, a tumor or an ear infection. In a nutshell, the reversible type can be, well, reversed.

Then, there are also the irreversible types that numerous different issues can also cause. Those, however, cannot be cured entirely. Still, there are hearing aids that can help solve you solve the problem and regain your sense in a way. Whatever the case may be, though, one thing is for sure. You will have to visit a medical specialist to help you resolve this problem.

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