My hearing is starting to diminish
Is there anything I can do to reverse my loss?
answer:
Maybe. Are you taking diuretics, such as Lasix, or ethacrynic acid to lower your blood pressure? How about antibiotics, like streptomycin or neomycin, or chemotherapy drugs, such as cisplatin and nitrogen mustard? These medications can cause temporary hearing loss. “High doses of aspirin [more than eight tablets a day] will do it, too,” says Joseph Roberson, M.D., CEO of the California Ear Institute. “But when you stop taking the medicine, the damage usually reverses itself.” Mechanical problems— perforated eardrums, fused ear bones, wax buildup, or anything else that impedes the conduction of sound—can usually be reversed as well. All you’ll need is surgery, medication, or, for wax, a good cleaning.
Hearing loss caused by damage to the auditory nerve, however, is usually permanent. To a certain degree, it’s also inevitable. A gradual degeneration of this nerve often sets in after age 20, according to the American Speech Language Association. Normally, this incremental loss doesn’t become noticeable until after the age of 65, but inner ear diseases, tumors, and excessively loud noises can accelerate it. In fact, “most hearing loss is due to noise exposure over a lifetime—rock concerts in our teens and power saws in our twenties,” says Roberson.
Rock concerts tip the auditory scales at 120 to 140 decibels—a level at which irreversible hearing loss can set in after 9 seconds. Even iPods, which have a maximum volume of 115 decibels, can be a danger in that regard. To be safe, limit your exposure to environments louder than 85 decibels (the noise created by heavy traffic). But don’t err too far on the side of caution, either. After a decade of testing the hearing of more than 10,000 people around the world, researchers at the University of Giessen, in Germany, found that people in quiet rural areas suffered as much hearing loss as construction workers, who have notoriously poor hearing, thanks to the loud machinery they work with. The researchers’ conclusion: You need to exercise your ears to keep them sharp.
Email This Post
