Hearing loss is one of those things that most of us attribute to old age. The truth is that people of all ages can experience hearing loss. Understanding the various factors that can lead to hearing loss can help you to learn how to avoid and treat them early on.

Earwax Buildup

While most of us utilize the regular daily practice of cleaning our ears with Q-tips. Unfortunately, some people are just more prone to having earwax buildup than others. This wax, known medically as cerumen, is a necessity for your body to protect the ear from foreign particles, microorganisms, and dust.

With the use of Q-tips and the wax’s natural ability to make its way to the ear opening, it usually allows it to be removed. However, when the glands overproduce earwax, it can lead to an unwanted hardening of the wax in the ear. This will block the sound waves from being able to reach the inner ear. This is a temporary cause of hearing loss that can be easily remedied by having a New Jersey audiologist remove the hardened wax buildup.

Ruptured Eardrum

Known formally as tympanic membrane perforation, a ruptured eardrum can be a result of a few different factors. This includes loud blasts of noise near the ear, sudden pressure changes, infection, or even poking the eardrum with an object. This is typically a temporary cause of hearing loss that will heal within a few weeks.

When the eardrum ruptures, a tear or hole in the thin tissue is identified. This thin tissue lies between the middle ear, known as the eardrum, and the ear canal. While most ruptured eardrums heal on their own, sometimes a medical professional may need to apply a patch to surgically repair the hole. It’s important to note that this condition does make the ear more susceptible to infections during the healing process.

Ear Infections

Ear infections can provide temporary hearing loss for patients. The infection itself is usually the blockage that keeps the outside sounds from passing through the ear canal into the inner ear. Medical professionals will refer to this type of situation as conductive hearing loss. Patients may hear muffled or indistinct sounds in the affected ear.

There are many different types of infections that your ears are prone to get. These include otitis externa, otitis media, otitis media with effusion, and infections of the cochlea. Depending on the specific type of infection that you’re dealing with, you’ll be given different recommendations for treating them. Infections can occur in just one or both ears.

Excessive Noise Exposure

People experience a large number of sounds throughout their normal day to day lives. From the television to the traffic outdoors, most of these sounds tend to be at a safe level. However, when sounds are too loud, they can cause a temporary loss of hearing for patients. In some rare cases, excessive noise exposure can cause permanent loss of hearing.

Most people experience noise exposure hearing loss when they’re exposed to loud noises over a lengthy period. Some of these things include concerts and loud machinery. In some cases, a one-time exposure may happen that has such an intense impulse, such as an explosion, that it damages the inner ear nerves.

Acoustic Neuroma

An acoustic neuroma is known as a benign tumor that develops on the hearing or auditory nerves. This puts pressure on the nerves of the ear and can lead to hearing imbalance or hearing loss. This slow-growing tumor usually doesn’t affect more than just hearing loss.

Most patients who have this type of tumor will be under regular monitoring by a medical professional. In some cases, surgical removal may be required if the tumor grows too fast and threatens to damage the brain. In other cases, radiation is applied to the area to stop the growth of the tumor.

Aging

Known medically as presbycusis, age-related hearing loss is something that most people are familiar with. It comes on gradually as we age. It’s estimated that one in every three adults will experience some form of age-related hearing loss between the ages of 65 and 74. The numbers even grow worse with half of the population over 75 having difficulty hearing.

In most cases, patients will experience presbycusis in both of their ears equally. There are numerous individual reasons why hearing loss tends to get worse with age. They can be categorized into the inner ear, middle ear, or nerve pathway problems. It’s also important to note that some medications and medical conditions can make the age-related hearing loss even worse.

Smoking

This cause of hearing loss may surprise you but it’s true. Smoking can lead to hearing loss. The nicotine and carbon dioxide associated with smoking tighten the blood vessels in the ears. This restricted blood flow depletes the oxygen that the ear nerves and cells need. Over time, this can limit a person’s ability to hear effectively.

Medications

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has named more than 200 different medications that can cause hearing loss and other hearing-related problems. These medications have been labeled ototoxic, meaning they can be damaging to the ears. Some of the most common medications that people use that are labeled ototoxic include NSAIDs, Quinine, Aspirin, Antidepressants, and Loop Diuretics. It’s very important to read the side effects on labels from your medications to learn which types of symptoms you should be watching out for.

As you can see, many factors can lead to hearing loss. Most doctors will classify the loss in one of three categories including sensorineural, conductive, and mixed. Sensorineural is going to deal with hearing loss that occurs due to inner ear nerves and hair cells in the body. Conductive hearing loss will be more of a result of obstructions in the middle or outer ear. Lastly, mixed hearing loss will be a combination of the two. Understanding the various kinds of hearing loss and the factors that can lead to them can allow you to better prepare and identify when there’s an issue present.

The last 250-odd years have made the world a much noisier place. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the invention of all manner of machinery – not to mention the building of factories to make things in – everyday life for many people became an assault on the ears.

Up until that point, life had been altogether more sedate: music wasn’t amplified (the first loudspeakers didn’t turn up until the 1860s), horses were the fastest means of transport and the only real threat to your hearing was exposure to gun- and cannon-fire (an occupational hazard for just a small proportion of the population).

Fast-forward to 2019: those early speakers have morphed into tiny earbuds capable of delivering 100dB+ directly into our ears; we go to pubs, clubs and concerts where the volume is so high normal conversation is impossible; we ride motorbikes with powerful (and sometimes noisy) engines; we live in cities where there is a constant drone of traffic, and we travel to work on trains and tubes where even the quiet carriage is actually quite loud.

How is this damaging your hearing? I hear you ask. Well, with ‘normal’ use, our hearing should remain good until we reach our seventies or eighties (in other words, a normal lifespan). Trouble is, ‘normal’ is based on pre-Industrial Revolution noise levels. There are two mechanisms of harm to your hearing: high intensity (very loud but usually short-lived noises, such as gunfire, explosions, fireworks, loud music, motor racing) and intensity over time (i.e. modest sounds over a long period of time).

So, what are the main hearing hazards of modern life and how can we overcome them?

1 Using headphones

Since the advent of the personal stereo back in 1979, headphone use has grown exponentially. We use them regularly: on public transport on our daily commute, when playing computer games, in the office to block out the background chitter-chatter… The WHO recommends that we listen to no more than 85dBA over any eight-hour period; if you’re listening at 100dB (the maximum level out of a handset), it’s only really safe to listen for 20-25 minutes in any eight-hour period before your hearing is damaged.

It’s hard to tell by listening alone whether the volume is damagingly high, so one solution is to consider using a hearing safeguarding app, such as HearAngel®, which can tell you when you’ve literally heard enough. By monitoring your consumption of sound, it calculates your personal sound and provides you with information and warnings at levels you choose. Think of it as a FitBit for your ears when listening to headphones.

A second option is to use noise-cancelling headphones, which enable you to listen at a lower volume in noisy environments. Earpiece-type noise-cancelling headphones will reduce ambient noise by a factor of 10, over-ear ones by 20 (their physical shape makes a more effective barrier than in-ear headphones). They work by cancelling out the noise you’re being exposed to, and they make it quieter even if you’re not actually listening to anything (useful on that noisy tube train). You’ll still have to listen at 6-10dB above the noise ‘floor’ (residual level), but as that will be much lower, the total listening level will be correspondingly lower.

2 Public transport

Parts of the London Underground are notoriously loud – the loudest sound recorded on the tube was between Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green at 109dB (louder than a helicopter taking off nearby, but not quite up to chainsaw level) – while the trip between Kentish Town and Tufnell Park on the Northern Line averages at 97dBA. Overground trains, trams and buses tend to be quieter, but the best advice is to prepare for the worst, then you’ll be fine in other scenarios.

The obvious temptation is to plug in your headphones and switch off from the world. However, you’ll probably find yourself nudging up the volume to block out the extraneous noise so you can hear your content clearly – so you could end up subjecting your ears to damaging noise levels. Instead, wear your noise-cancelling headphones (see above) to simply reduce the background noise to a more acceptable level (i.e. not listening to music); alternatively, wear ear plugs to help block out the noise.

3 Noisy nightlife

We’ve all had the experience of going to a pub or club and not being able to conduct a conversation without shouting – unless you’ve paid to listen to the music that’s drowning out the conversation, it can ruin a good evening, and even if you want to hear music that loud, you may be damaging your hearing if you stay in that environment for too long.

Avoid overexposure to loud noise where possible – if you’re going to a rock concert, consider getting some musicians’ earplugs and wearing them for the support act (you’ll still be able to hear them), then listen to the main act without if you must. If possible, seek out a quieter area for a while, just to give your ears a rest.

4 Environmental noise

Traffic, road works, sirens, even the sound of a coffee machine making your morning espresso – it seems that everywhere we go, we’re surrounded by noise. Remember, sound is what you want to hear, everything else is noise. Sometimes a little peace and quiet is exactly what you need, so seek out a quiet space and just sit back with a good book. As our exposure to sound is calculated as an average over a 24-hour period, those quiet times will help bring your average down and your ears will benefit from a period of no or low exposure to sound.

5 No such thing as a silent night

If you live on a busy road, it can be hard to achieve total silence, but it will help more than just your ears if you can make your bedroom environment as quiet as possible. Double glazing and heavy-duty blackout curtains can help (they don’t just block out the light); if necessary, consider wearing ear plugs at night.

By understanding the hazards it is easier to mitigate the risks – so take the time to protect your hearing; once you notice it is going, it’s too late. You can’t repair damaged hearing – it has gone forever.

#pleaselistencarefully

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Wheatley has spent six years creating occupational hearing protection solutions and is one of the founders of HearAngel – a smartphone app that helps you protect your ears from damage while using headphones.

Web: www.hearangel.com

Facebook: Hearangeltech

Twitter @hearangel-tech