Hearing Loss Causes and Treatments

Hearing loss causes are many. There are ways to prevent hearing loss and to improve hearing if affected already.

Some hearing loss causes can be treated through home remedies, medicines, and surgery based on the severity and type of hearing loss. There is no such thing as hearing loss causing ear pain or an earache.

Types of Hearing Loss

There are three main types of hearing loss.

Conductive Hearing Loss – This hearing loss is due to impacts in the eardrum ear canal, middle ear, and middle year bones ie. Incus, malleus, and stapes.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss – This is a nerve-related hearing loss from the inner ear (cochlea).  A sudden hearing loss in one ear is common for this type of hearing loss.

Mixed Hearing Loss – This is a combination of both conductive and sensorineural hearing loss.

Hearing Loss Causes

Conductive Hearing Loss Causes

• Abnormalities in the outer ear, middle ear structures, or ear canal
• Formation of fluids in the middle part of the ear due to common colds
• Otitis media Ear Infection Hearing Loss – Infection in the middle ear causing accumulation of fluid interfering with eardrum and ossicles movements
• Otosclerosis – An Inherited disorder where the ear unable to amplify the sound
• Allergies
• Eustachian tube not normally functioning
• A benign tumor
• Impact due to earwax
• Punctured eardrum
• Foreign particles in the ear
• Ear canal infection

Sensorineural Hearing Loss Causes

• Loud and noisy environment
• Presbycusis – an age-related hearing loss
• Trauma – especially fracture in the skull
• Virus infection
• Autoimmune – Inner ear disease due to antibodies or lymphocytes
• Hereditary hearing loss
• Abnormality of the inner ear
• Meniere’s Disease – A spinning feeling of vertigo
• Otosclerosis – Inherited ear disorder were not able to amplify sound
• Tumors

Hearing Loss Symptoms

In most cases, the hearing ability slowly begins to fade away. Impacted people tend to think that other people are mumbling. Sometimes they think that the phone’s sound volume is not enough for them to hear. This is how hearing loss symptoms start.

Generally, hearing loss is classified at 3 levels by doctors: –

Mild Hearing Loss – this hearing loss is when one can hear on one to one conversation. However, it may be difficult to hear clearly if there is background noise.

Moderate Hearing Loss – This is when an impacted person may ask people to repeat what they said while having a conversation.

Severe Hearing Loss – This is an impacted person not able to follow a conversation with others. Wearing a hearing aid could be the only remedy.

Profound Hearing Loss – This is when you need other people to speak very loud for the impacted person to hear. In this case, the hearing aid is required to hear the conversion clearly.

The following are the generic hearing loss symptoms: –

• Not able to understand or follow conversations when more than one person is talking at the same time.
• May think the other person is not talking clearly but just murmuring to him or herself.
• Misunderstand or pretend to be understood and respond inappropriately.
• Keeping TV sound volume very high and as a result, others complain that TV is too loud
• Tinnitus – Ringing, hissing, or roaring sounds within the ears
• Missing to hear high-frequency sounds such as female or young children’s voices, and beep sounds from various devices.  The devices could be such as micro ovens, timers, and so on.  Difficulty in differentiating sounds from words with S, SH, and F.

Treatment for Hearing Losses

Conductive Hearing Loss Treatment

Mostly conductive hearing loss is corrected through surgical procedures.  Procedures are to correct the affected part of the ear.

In cases where a surgical procedure does not work, to improve the hearing the doctors may advise: –

• Wearing a hearing aid with bone amplification
• Surgically implanting a hearing aid with bone amplification
• Use of FDA-approved Osseointegrated device
• Conventional hearing aid

Sensorineural Hearing Loss treatment

Quite many treatments are available for this type of hearing loss depending on the following hearing conditions.

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL)– Viral infection is the cause of this hearing loss. This nature of sudden hearing loss in one ear is treated with corticosteroids.

Sensorineural hearing loss – Medical therapy with corticosteroids is applied to the affected ear with swelling or inflammation in the cochlear hair cell.

Fluctuating sensorineural hearing loss – So far, the cause is unknown but it has a link to Meniere’s Disease. Symptoms of this disease are ringing sound in the ear (tinnitus), hearing loss, and vertigo problems. Doctors may treat this condition using corticosteroids, diuretics, and a low-sodium diet.

Bilateral progressive hearing loss – This is an inner ear disease known as autoimmune.  As a result, our immune system misleads the protection against the ear structures. Finally, ends up causing damage to the ear. This condition is treated with drug therapy or long-term corticosteroids depending on the condition of the ear.

Irreversible sensorineural hearing loss –  A combination of hearing aids and having surgically cochlear implants are considered for treating this condition.

Sensorineural hearing loss from tumors – Since nerves are involved in this case, the removal of the tumor helps at the early stages while it is smaller in size. Removal of tumors helps to save hearing loss to some extent.

Mixed Hearing Loss Treatment

As this is a combination of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss conditions, doctors would look at first treating conductive hearing loss for the desired results.

Chiropractic Adjustment Treatment

A Chiropractic adjustment is a method of correcting the spine with hands with a certain force. This is a proven method done by chiropractors.

Natural Remedy for Hearing Loss

We have been giving more details on the hearing loss causes, symptoms, and how they are treated so far. Now let us see some good natural remedies to recover from hearing loss.  Natural remedies for hearing loss are useful in the early stages of hearing loss, for preventing hearing loss, and to improve hearing.

Here are the 3 effective hearing loss home remedies that you can consider trying: –

1. Ginger for improving hearing

Ginger is well known for its antibacterial, anti-inflammation and it’s other medicinal properties. It helps to improve hearing and reduce any inflammation or swelling affecting the hearing.

You can have ginger in the form of ginger tea. This is how you prepare your ginger tea: –

1 tablespoon each of cilantro, dried oregano, sage, rosemary, and cinnamon
3 slices of fresh ginger
4 cups of water

Mix all of the above in a saucepan with 4 cups of water. Cover the saucepan with a lid and boil it for about 15 minutes.  After that strain and drink the made ginger tea three times a day for three weeks.

Ginger can wonder when comes to home remedies. More health benefits for ginger.

2. Bone marrow soup for improving hearing

3 lbs of sheep or calve bones
8 cups of water
3/1 cup of black beans
1/3 cup of adzuki beans
2 diced carrots
2 diced celery stalks
1 sliced onion
½ cup of seaweed
1 teaspoon of each turmeric, cumin, and black pepper
(salt not required)

Mix all the above in a pot of 8 cups of water and cook on a stove till the marrow bones are cooked well making it soup. Have the soup two or three times a week.

3. Immortal Beating the Heavenly Drum (Dao In Qi Gong) Exercise

This exercise mainly targets clearing your mind and bringing your focus back. It has also helped many people with conditions like tinnitus and vertigo problems. This is a valuable exercise to maintain a healthy ear and healthy hearing ability as well.

Here are the steps for the Dao In Qi Gong exercise: –

• Sit comfortably on a chair or floor having your back in a straight position
• Keep breathing slowly with a good rhythm and inhale deeply then exhale slowly
• Now with your palms covering both ears. In doing so your fingers should be pointing at each other at the back of your head.
• Place your index fingers over your middle fingers (look at the finger positions in the picture for illustration).
• Now snap with your index finger onto the head at the wind pond acupoints.
• Repeat snapping with your index finger once every second only when you are exhaling
• Continue to breathe slowly and keep snapping at exhaling for about 30 seconds till you have done snapping 36 times on the wind pond acupoints.
• Finally, put your hands down and continue breathing for a while before you end the exercise.

Prevention of Hearing Loss

In most cases, hearing loss may become permanent. Therefore, a little extra simple effort and care can protect your ears for good.

• Avoid loud and noisy environments. If you are not able to avoid such environments always wear a pair of earplugs to protect your ears
• Be careful when listening to music wearing headphones. Set the right sound volume to hear music in the headphones. High volume can affect your eardrum and lead to hearing loss.
• The use of certain antibiotics such as gentamicin, aminoglycoside, and tobramycin can cause hearing loss temporarily and sometimes permanently. Take your physician for advice before use of these antibiotics
• Keep your ears always infection-free