by Kay Brown - Default -

Hearing Loss

What Is Hearing Loss?

Hearing loss is the condition that results when any part of your ear isn’t working the way it should. It’s the third most common health problem in the U.S, and it can affect the quality of your life and relationships. About 48 million Americans have lost some hearing.

You can have three different types of hearing loss, depending on where your hearing is damaged. Your hearing loss can be:

  • Conductive if it involves your outer or middle ear
  • Sensorineural if it involves your inner ear
  • Mixed if it involves a combination of the two

Certain conditions, including age, illness, and genetics, may play a role in hearing loss. Modern life has added a host of ear-damaging elements to the list, including some medications and many sources of loud, ongoing noise. Learn more about the common causes of hearing loss.

With so many untreatable cases of hearing loss, prevention is the best way to keep hearing long-term. If you’ve already lost some hearing, there are ways to stay connected and communicate with friends and family. 

Hearing Loss Symptoms

In many cases, hearing fades so slowly you don’t notice it. You may think people are mumbling more, your spouse needs to speak up, or you need a better phone. As long as some sound still comes in, you could assume your hearing is fine. But you may become more and more cut off from the world of speech and sounds. So how do you know if you are losing your hearing?

Doctors classify hearing loss by degrees.

  • Mild hearing loss: One-on-one conversations are fine, but it’s hard to catch every word when there’s background noise.
  • Moderate hearing loss: You often need to ask people to repeat themselves during conversations in person and on the phone.
  • Severe hearing loss: Following a conversation is almost impossible unless you have a hearing aid.
  • Profound hearing loss: You can’t hear other people speaking unless they’re extremely loud. You can’t understand what they’re saying without a hearing aid or cochlear implant. Learn more about how much hearing loss is considered deaf.

Early on, high-pitched sounds, such as children’s and female voices, and the sounds “S” and “F” become harder to make out. You may also:

  • Have trouble following a conversation when more than one person speaks at once
  • Think other people are mumbling or not speaking clearly
  • Often misunderstand what others say and respond inappropriately
  • Get complaints that the TV is too loud
  • Hear ringing, roaring, or hissing sounds in your ears, known as tinnitus

Hearing Loss Causes

Your ear has three main areas that play a part in hearing. Sound waves go through your:

  • Outer ear where they cause vibrations in your eardrum.
  • Middle ear, which gets the vibrations next. They’re boosted by three small bones.
  • Inner ear, which houses the cochlea, a snail-shaped fluid-filled structure. It has tiny hairs that change the amplified vibrations into electrical signals and send them to your brain, where you hear them as sound.

Advanced age is the most common cause of hearing loss. One out of three people between 65 and 74 has some level of hearing loss. After age 75, that goes up to one out of every two people.

Researchers don’t fully understand why hearing declines with age. It could be that lifetime exposure to noise and other damaging factors slowly wears down the ears’ delicate mechanics. Your genes are also part of the mix.

Noise wears down hearing if it’s loud or continuous. The CDC reports that about 22 million American workers are exposed to dangerous noise levels on the job. This includes many carpenters, construction workers, soldiers, miners, factory workers, and farmers.

Musicians are also at risk for noise-induced hearing loss. Some now wear special earplugs to protect their ears when they perform. The earplugs allow them to hear music without harming their ears’ inner workings.

Certain medications can impair hearing or balance. More than 200 drugs and chemicals have a track record of triggering hearing and balance side effects in addition to their disease-fighting abilities.

Sudden hearing loss, the rapid loss of 30 decibels or more of hearing ability, can happen over several hours or up to 3 days. (A normal conversation is 60 decibels.) Sudden hearing loss usually affects only one ear. Although there are up to three new cases per every 10,000 people each year, doctors are not able to discover the cause in most cases.

Illnesses such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes put ears at risk by interfering with the ears’ blood supply. Otosclerosis is a bone disease of the middle ear, and Ménière’s disease affects the inner ear. Both can cause hearing loss.

Trauma, especially a skull fracture or punctured eardrum, puts ears at serious risk for hearing loss.

Infection or earwax can block ear canals and lessen hearing.

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