Most people would probably find such a subject to be pretty mundane but the author of A Quiet World: Living with Hearing loss does a great job of writing in a way that’s not just entertaining but also provides a lot of great information.

Read the review from Publishers Weekly:

“Some 28 million Americans and 350 million people worldwide live with hearing loss,” psychologist Myers (The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty) explains in his compassionate and humorous new work; and he is one of them.

As he maintains, to be without hearing is to be socially isolated. And, even more important, since language is necessary for learning, without an equivalent for the spoken word, childhood development can lag behind.

In this 10-year journal of his experiences and observations, Myers charts the progression of his own hearing loss and compares it with that of his mother, who became profoundly deaf and, despite her family’s efforts, increasingly isolated in a silent world all her own.

As a loving observer, Myers’s wife shares her sadness and frustration with her husband’s growing problem and unwillingness, for many years, to do anything about it. In turn, he stresses that it is up to the affected individual to seek av (Read more…)

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It’s an easy to understand guide that will help with everything from emotional support to technical details about your child’s condition.

The author does a fantastic job of detailing technical information in a personal experience way.

Allowing for the reader to really feel the story and not be bored with all of the technical details.

If your child has complete hearing loss than the book may not completely fulfill what you’re looking for, but there is a wealth of information in the book regarding hearing loss.

The book has received a lot of positive feedback and continues to be one of my favorite recommendations for parents with children suffering from hearing loss.

(Read more…)

According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2005 estimates, 278 million people across the world suffer from some kind of hearing impairment, including, but not limited to, total deafness.

“Hearing impairment” technically refers to partial or total loss of hearing in either one ear or in both; it encompasses both conductive and sensorineural hearing impairment issues.

These may be obtained from environmental factors, or they may be congenital (in other words, acquired at birth.)

Most of the facts about hearing impairment typically fall into two categories.

Conductive hearing impairment is defined as a problem with the sound wave-conducting tissue in the middle or outer ear. It is commonly due to such causes as untreated childhood ear infections and is can generally be cured or treated through use of both medications and surgical methods.

Sensorineural hearing impairment, on the other hand, involves the inner ear and occasionally the main nerve that connects it to the brain. It results from overexposure to noise or old age, and can be permanent unless treatment measures such as hearing aids or cochlear implants are employed.

The statistical facts about hearing impairment are sobering. 80% of all cases occur in poorer countries, but most of those in the United States are preventable. They are caused by such things as ear infections in children and too much noise exposure at events like rock concerts.

This means that the main solutions for hearing impairment include awareness, prevention, early detection, and medical intervention early on in the impairment process.

Decisions based on the facts about hearing impairment should always take into account the age of the patient.

For example, if the victim is of advanced age, hearing aids may be the best and least expensive option. But hearing issues in children can affect them for the rest of their lives, causing difficulties with pronunciation, spelling, and of course serious pain in social situations.

Cochlear implants and other such long-term solutions may be best for the welfare and future of the child.

Science has made many new advances in the field of hearing impairment and more research is being done every day to assist victims of this terrible infirmity. For example, recent studies indicate that vitamin E, taken in 400 mg doses twice a day, can restore part or most of a patient’s hearing even if the initial hearing loss was sudden and of unknown cause.

Consultation with a doctor can provide more of the facts about hearing impairment and help to find further solutions.

Sounds that register at a high frequency are more susceptible to loss than low ones, which may lead the victim of hearing loss to act as though they can hear sometimes and not at others.

This is simply because high sounds, for example consonants, are more difficult for them to hear.

However, depending on the severity of the loss, certain other sounds can still be heard, so it is unfair to say that the affected person is “just pretending” or practicing “selective hearing” for their own benefit.

High frequency hearing loss is a little-understood phenomenon that often precedes other types of hearing loss and, in some cases, comes simultaneously with them.

To the victim of high frequency hearing loss and other types of hearing disorders, everyday words may be missing little pieces. They hear the low inflections and vowels of each word, but not the rest of them, meaning that in some cases they will understand what is being said to them and respond, and in other cases they cannot hear well enough to function.

It may be useful for them to try and face the speaker whenever possible. Lip reading, a useful technique employed by those who are fully deaf, can also assist victims of any type of hearing loss.

Consulting with a doctor and determining the severity of normal or high frequency hearing loss can also be helpful, since in many cases hearing aids that are designed to restore high frequency sounds can be employed. In other situations, cochlear implants may be surgically added in order to provide a more permanent, long-term solution.

It is often difficult to tell the difference between high frequency hearing loss and mild to normal hearing loss. Especially with all of the background noise inherent in modern life, the only discernible symptom may be a slight problem with understanding words; at times, conversations may become a series of mumbles to the hearing-impaired listener and they may simply chalk it up to crosstalk or competing sounds.

The key distinction will be distortion of any kind. Music is an especially good indicator; victims of many types of hearing loss find that they cannot enjoy music as they formerly did because the sounds of many instruments have become warped.

Conductive hearing loss is an easier problem than its counterpart, sensorineural hearing loss.

Often with sensorineural hearing loss the problem is genetic or internal and must be corrected with methods as serious as surgery, but sometimes hearing aids are the only option.

With conductive hearing loss, the damage has already been done, but if it is a blockage (which is commonly is) removing that obstacle is fairly simple.

External forces have harmed the conductive tissue of the ear or blocked it, and this tissue is responsible for transmitting sound waves to the tympanum. If the mutilation or obstruction is too severe there is simply no way to repair it, but treatment options abound.

Can conductive hearing loss be cured?

The answer lies in what the source of damage is and how extreme the problem has become.

Upwards of 70% of conductive hearing loss occurs in young children. They contract ear infections frequently; curing their conductive hearing loss may be as simple as preventing it by never allowing an ear infection to go untreated.

Once in the hearing loss stage, however, antibiotics and other drugs may be used to treat and sometimes fully cure the hearing loss. This type of antibiotic treatment sometimes cures issues as severe as a ruptured membrane, so be sure to discuss every option with your doctor.

Many types of conductive hearing loss can be cured. But the question that remains to be asked is can conductive hearing loss be cured completely like this?

Too often, the answer is no, but never give up hope until several medical experts have been consulted. Each individual case varies so greatly from the next. If there are too many or too few bones in the ear, or if one of these bones becomes damaged, surgery is largely successful in taking care of the problem.

After all of these options have been explored, the final and best choice may simply be to use hearing aids. There is no one definitive cure-all for every type of hearing loss.

Researchers constantly experiment with treatments that have worked in the past, hoping to develop just such a universal cure, but until that day arrives the blessing of modern technology has provided hearing loss victims with a way to restore some or all of their hearing ability.

Hearing aids are a proven technique. It may well be a question of can conductive hearing loss can be cured in another way as recommended by your doctor, so much the better. If not, hearing aids are there for you to fall back on as a trusted, relatively inexpensive alternative.

It’s the natural wear and tear the eardrum goes through as we get older. This is why like it or not, in a few decades you may be asking people to repeat themselves—hearing loss typically begins in our 40’s and reaches its worst stage in our 80’s, when it affects 50% of the population.

But is it fair to have to wear hearing aids before then? Other than old age, some causes of hearing impairment are as follows.

Hearing loss basically falls into two categories: conductive and sensorineural.

Conductive hearing loss is when the tissues of your ear have been damaged and can no longer conduct sound waves the way they should.

This type of hearing loss is most commonly caused by intense exposure to loud noise, a major obstruction of the ear passage (which can usually be corrected by surgery), inflammation of the ear tissues brought on by extreme ear infection, or a ruptured ear drum. It can also result from cerumen, or an extreme buildup of earwax that requires removal by a doctor.

Sensorineural hearing loss, on the other hand, is not due to external causes. It is most often caused by something inside the body behaving wrong, such as a cranial nerve connected to the ear, parts of the brain that control the ear malfunctioning, or internal issues with the inner ear.

This may be congenital (acquired genetically at birth) or acquired from outside influences. This can occur not only from long term noise exposure but also incorrect dosages of medications. Viagra, certain diuretics, macrolide antibiotics, and heavy abuse of narcotics like Vicodin and OxyContin have been identified as causes of hearing impairment.

Of course, physical trauma can be responsible, but several common diseases are also related. They are mostly degenerative: measles, mumps, and meningitis; STDS like syphilis, Chlamydia, HIV/AIDS, autoimmune disease, adenoids, fetal alcohol syndrome and premature birth.

While various treatments and cures are in development for sudden hearing loss and related problems, so far the only completely corrective measure comes in the form of hearing aids or cochlear implants.

So, it is always vitally important to know about the symptoms and causes of hearing impairment in order to take preventative measures or to catch them at an early stage.

That is the definition of sudden hearing loss: it occurs in less than three days and often attacks without warning.

The loss may occur all at once and leave you mostly deaf, or it may come on gradually and result in a very slight amount of deafness that you might think you are imagining.

But this disease is not as harmless as tinnitus (ringing of the ears). The symptoms and signs associated with your particular type of hearing loss may give you a clue as to what caused it, thus helping your doctor to identify and treat the problem quickly.

Here are some sudden hearing loss symptoms to check for:

• Sudden hearing loss can result from trauma or bad blood circulation
• Gradual onset can point to serious causes, such as tumors in the head or neck area
• If the hearing loss occurs in conjunction with vertigo or tinnitus, it may be a nerve issue
• Hearing loss in one ear is known as “unilateral,” while loss in both ears is “bilateral.” Unilateral hearing loss is most commonly associated with acoustic neuromas, conductive causes, and trauma.
• Ear infections may cause momentary loss but are usually fixable. They typically cause a fever and severe inner ear pain. Other causes of such pain may be from trauma or canal obstruction.

If these sudden hearing loss symptoms are severe or sustained, they may require the immediate attention of a doctor. Other issues that are sometimes associated with the possibility of sudden hearing loss include a foreign body in the ear canal, extreme pressure changes (such as with flying or diving), severe head and neck trauma, blood or excessive fluid leaking from the ear, and a fever that does not respond to anti-inflammatory drugs such as Tylenol.

If you are manifesting these signs it is imperative that you seek medical attention immediately. The doctor will employ a number of techniques to ascertain the causes and severity of your symptoms, from testing your hearing with a tuning fork to running a CT brain scan if necessary.

These investigative measures can be key in early diagnosis and/or preventing loss of hearing.

So be sure to know and analyze any sudden hearing loss symptoms you may be exhibiting so that your sudden hearing loss, if and when it comes, doesn’t have to be permanent.

Its treatment is an expanding field and one that makes new discoveries constantly; currently there is no definitive cure.

Recent research indicates that vitamin E, taken in 400 mg doses twice a day, is a highly effective treatment.

However, most treatments for this disease tend to be highly controversial, because about 90% of all cases remain a complete mystery to doctors.

They are known as idiopathic cases; in other words, systematic and without apparent cause.

Conventional treatments are numerous and of varied effectiveness. Sudden hearing loss treatments available on the market can include measures such as oral steroids, a time-proven technique that can aid in partial recovery. In certain cases, it appears that a combination of steroids and antiviral medication achieves greater results than either method used on its own.

Vasodilatation is a form of therapy also commonly used. It involves the use of hormones, given orally or intravenously, to widen veins and increase blood flow. (Viagra is a famous example of a vasodilator.) In certain hearing loss cases, vasodilators can heighten the body’s natural immune system response.

Some doctors and researchers argue that the immune system is the only necessary form of sudden hearing loss treatment. They advocate the no-treatment option, where a patient is given plenty of rest and good nutrition and then left to his or her own devices.

In a study performed in 1977, this method was found to cause spontaneous recovery in two-thirds of participants. Certain proponents of this method argue that hasty medicinal treatment may tamper with the body’s natural ability to heal itself, and that if left alone, sudden hearing loss will disappear as quickly as it came. The effectiveness of the no-treatment method is difficult to prove and is still debated.

Hyperbaric oxygen treatments have been explored as a sudden hearing loss treatment, and results are currently inconclusive, but seem positive. Some studies have shown a slight increase in hearing ability after the patient was given high doses of oxygen and allowed to rest. But because oxygen treatment has factors that are difficult to control—for example, we all breathe oxygen every day, thus tampering with treatment results—making judgments based on this method is not yet reliable.

A study performed in 2008 points to large doses of prednisone taper combined with intratympanic dexamethasone as a possible solution. This avenue of research is still being investigated.

Essentially, the most promising recent research indicates that doses of vitamin E are the best for sudden hearing loss treatment. This powerful antioxidant has also been used to treat diabetes, and patients given vitamin E for sudden hearing loss reported a near-complete recovery.

This type of hearing loss is also referred to as nerve deafness. Nerve deafness is somewhat appropriate for this medical problem but not entirely the cause.

Those over 65 years of age account for twenty-three percent of those affected by Sensorineural hearing loss causes in America.

Sensorineural hearing loss causes are due to some sort of damage to the auditory nerve or the cochlear nerve. The cochlear nerve is responsible for getting sound to the brain.

Sensorineural is most commonly used when talking about a lesion in the eighth nerves or the cochlear area of the ear. Diagnosing this pattern of hearing loss can only be found through the use of the audiometer. This differentiates between the amount of air conduction and bone conduction.

Individuals who have defects in the cochlear region cannot pass OAE testing. Individuals with eighth nerve (auditory) deficiency cannot pass BAER testing.

The most common Sensorineural hearing loss causes are a result of old age, ototoxic medication use (large doses of aspirin and diuretics), Menieres disease, exposure to loud noises, immune disorders, and inner ear trauma. Tumors are a rare occurrence in this type of hearing loss but metastatic cancer, such as those found in the breast, can be one of the Sensorineural hearing loss causes.

Use of high amounts of aspirin or anti-inflammatory drugs can be linked also. Diabetic individuals experience gradual Sensorineural hearing loss whereas others will have it come on suddenly. This is worsened by the ear infections diabetics suffer from. Because it is an autoimmune disorder, the autoimmune drugs play a factor in how quickly the hearing goes. Getting control of diabetes seems to be the best way to slow this loss of hearing.

Sensorineural hearing loss causes due to noise is a result of damage to the cochlear. One-fourth of the work force in America is exposed, on a regular basis, to noise that can be potentially damaging to their ears. For this reason, the government has set forth standards to regulate the allowable amount of noise one should be exposed to. Workers in or around 1960 were exposed to higher noise levels because of having no laws in place to mandate hearing protection.

Sensorineural hearing loss causes are mainly general in nature but, in some cases, with proper ear protection and keeping noise to a bearable level, the amount of hearing

It is one of the few new treatments for sudden hearing loss that modern science has developed in the last few years to help counteract the effects of this terrible condition.

Sudden hearing loss is commonly defined as loss that occurs in three days or less.

This type of hearing loss is almost always unexpected and the reasons for it are extremely difficult to pinpoint—the majority of cases are idiopathic, meaning their cause is unknown.

It is clear that more research in this field is required. Only about 10-15% of cases are ever accurately solved, and they involve a narrow range of diagnoses: metabolic, immunologic, neurologic, viral, and bacterial causes. This makes it difficult to develop new treatments for sudden hearing loss.

It has long been known, thanks to innovations in the field of animal research, that antioxidants can prevent long-term inner ear damage. Vitamin E seems to be particularly effective across the board in animal testing.

In cases where a definite diagnosis cannot be determined, this vitamin can support the body’s natural recovery and sometimes fully restore hearing capacity.

However, vitamin E is still classified as a treatment rather than a cure. It improves hearing ability for victims of sudden hearing loss but so far has demonstrated only average performance in achieving total recovery.

Its use as a new treatment for sudden hearing loss may be imminent, though. A study of victims who had lost their hearing within the last eight days showed that although vitamin E was significantly more effective than common remedies like inhaling steroids or carbogen, taking magnesium, or being confined to bed rest, it contributed only marginally to complete healing of the inner ear.

Still, researchers are motivated by the fact that vitamin E displays a significant advantage over other treatments. Each study participant was given 400 mg of vitamin E twice a day and the test group showed significant results. They recovered up to 78% of their hearing, while hearing loss victims who used conventional methods only recovered up to about 45%. To provide a reference point, scientists classified successful recovery as 75% or more.

For all intents and purposes, vitamin E may be considered a new treatment for sudden hearing loss. Scientists encourage victims of sudden onset hearing loss to treat their symptoms with vitamin E under the direction of a doctor. They intend to pursue this medical avenue to its conclusion.

Experts believe that they may be just a few steps away from finding a complete cure for idiopathic hearing loss, and that possibly by combining vitamin E with other antioxidants in varying doses they will crack the code.