5 Injuries That Can Cause Hearing Loss

Contrary to popular belief, hearing loss isn’t something that is strictly age or genetically related. While these are significant factors in hearing loss, people of all ages can lose their hearing or experience damage to their ears resulting in hearing loss. Typically, however, your ears are the last things you think about when protecting your body, but this shouldn’t be the case, especially in loud or dangerous environments.

How exactly can you damage your ears and your hearing? There are many ways, from being predisposed to specific health conditions, illnesses that can affect your hearing, lifestyle factors and injuries. Injuries are some of the most common ways people experience problems with their hearing, resulting in temporary or permanent hearing loss. Whether low levels of loss or the ability to hear anything at all.

From excessive noise exposure to whiplash and a direct injury to the ear, this post looks at five injuries that can cause hearing loss to help you be more aware of how your hearing can be damaged.

Loud Noises

We all know that excessively loud noises can be uncomfortable and, over time, can cause hearing loss; however, do you know how loud those sounds need to be? Our ears can be safely exposed to noises up to 85 decibels, along the lines of a food blender, for example, traffic or a noisy restaurant. Sons over this limit can, when in constant exposure, cause hearing loss; however, one-off events that create excessive noise can cause pain and damage your hearing, such as standing next to loud fireworks without hearing protection or an aircraft taking off.

Head Injury

Sustaining a head injury is always likely to be an unpleasant experience and can affect you. The skull protects the brain in the event of an injury to the head; however, some impacts can jolt the brain and skull, leading to more damage to your head, including your ears. Suppose you sustain a head injury and experience a loss of balance or tinnitus. In that case, you should consult your doctor or audiologist to determine if you have experienced any damage to your ears and hearing.

Perforated Eardrums

While head injuries or exposure to excessive noise levels can cause a perforated eardrum, the most common way people perforate their eardrums is by picking something into their ears. A perforated eardrum can heal after a few weeks. However, it can open you up to complications such as ear infections and hearing loss. This is the main reason why you should never put anything inside your ear, whether removing ear wax build-up, itching or for any other reason.

If you feel you may have a perforated eardrum or are experiencing pain after cleaning or inserting items into your ear, talk to your doctor or audiologist to determine if you have perforated your eardrum and what to do to aid recovery.

Frostbite

Exposure to extreme cold temperatures for any length of time can lead to frostbite. Frostbite is incredibly dangerous for all body parts, especially the skin and extremities. However, it can also damage your hearing.

Frostbit can potentially lead to temporary or permanent hearing loss, so it is essential if you go outside in extremely cold conditions to ensure you have adequate hearing protection.

Whiplash

Whiplash is when the body becomes jolted, resulting in the head being whipped violently back and forth. This typically happens in car accidents or accidents involving high speeds.

When the head is jolted in this way, there is the potential for damage to occur in many different ways, from muscle strain in the head and neck to damaging the nerves in the brain to the sheer force applied to sustain whiplash.

Many people underestimate the severity of whiplash; however, this force can be detrimental to your ears, throwing off the delicate balance of your middle ear leading to tinnitus, loss of balance and even hearing loss if the force is great enough.

Concerned About Your Hearing?

If you are concerned about your hearing at all or have ear pain with or without discharge from your ears, then you need to seek treatment as soon as possible. Your hearing is something you should be actively preserving at all times. Discussing your concerns with an audiologist can help you determine if you have sustained any hearing loss and how best to protect your ears and hearing for the future. Contact Advanced Hearing of Brighton at 810-355-2245 today.