Almost
ten million Americans today are currently using hearing aids. This
number is just a mere fraction of those who have actually been
diagnosed with some form of hearing impairment.

I was one of those who has a hearing loss, but postponed getting
hearing aids because of vanity. Eventually I spent $6000 on Vivatone
brand digital hearing aids a couple of years ago and they are
gathering dust on the bathroom counter.

(Anyone need some 10 size batteries?)

If you have a hearing loss and are still denying you need hearing
aids, before you shout “aha!” and email this to your spouse or
significant other, my hearing loose is due to tinnitus.

Not to put to fine a point on it, tinnitus is the perception of sound
in the ears of head when no external source is present.

Tinnitus has
many forms, ringing,
hissing, static,
crickets, screeching,
whooshing, roaring,
pulsing, ocean waves, buzzing,
dial tones, even music.

Mine
is variable.

A
friend has his traced to 12,450 megahertz. (I’m assuming the audio
file plays OK, but I can’t hear it.)

As with most tinnitus sufferers, my tinnitus was caused by a lot of
exposure to noise. In my case it was go-karts, motorcycles, and hot
rods – all without mufflers- when I was a teenager.

But the hearing loss is just as complete and devastating.

Like most others, I put up with it. When
one is younger, wearing hearing aids just isn’t cool.

Even when I approached 60, I didn’t want to be the old man with the
hearing aids. I wore glasses all my life without a hitch. But only old
people wearing hearing aids, right?

While in the case of eyesight impairment, wearing glasses
or contacts seems the most normal thing of all and nobody feels
shameful, when it comes to hearing aids, people get shy and reluctant
in wearing them, because they’d be perceived as being
handicapped.

Hopefully my experience is different from yours. I wish I could hear
better by using hearing aids. But it is not so.

Researching online, I found a ton of homeopathic remedies and cures
for tinnitus. But my audiologist said there was no scientific evidence
to support any claim they work.

He recommended I try digital hearing aids in hope that by amplifying
the natural sound, it would suppress my recognition of the perceived
sound.

About the same time, a friend the same age as I, who had a hearing
loss was raving about his new Vivatone digital hearing aids and the
improvement it made in his life and wife.

They were small, behind-the-ear, flesh colored with an almost
imperceptible wire to the ear. They
were Vivatone brand digital hearing aids.

But they were expensive. $6,000 at that time. Much less now, I’m told.
I was in a position to afford them, so I made the leap.

There was no “getting used” to them. I found them comfortable and easy
to maintain. The only real maintenance, outside of changing the
batteries weekly, was to change ear wax catchers, and this was made
simple due to the design of tool used to install them.

The advantage to the Vivatone digital hearing aids is there is nothing
in your ear canal but a small tube that fits in the ear canal. No need
for a special mold. The dealer fit me immediately in his office.

I liked the way I looked. I wear my hair longish and wear glasses, so
my hair covered some of the hearing aid, and my glasses frames covered
some. The wire leading to my ear canal fell within the natural folds
of my ear.

Not invisible, but darn close.

It was also a time that I started to take control of my hearing loss
by announcing to my co-workers that I had a hearing loss, but was
wearing hearing aids. This was a big step and I got a lot of positive
feedback on how nobody could tell I had hearing aids.

Then slowly, over a matter of months, I came to the realization that
I had wasted my money. The hearing aids were not doing what my
audiologist and I had hoped. Sounds were not clearer. My tinnitus was
not masked.

I still was frustrated in restaurants as the clatter of dishes and the
underlying murmur of conversations at other tables made it almost
impossible to carry on a conversation at my table.

I found myself wearing expensive digital hearing aids, but still
lip-reading, laughing at jokes that I didn’t understand because I
didn’t hear clearly, and saying “pardon me” in a dozen different ways.

Huh? Whut? I’m sorry. Could you repeat that? Again, please?
were back in my conversations with too much regularity. The hearing
aids were worthless.

I truly wish it were different. With the technology they way it is
today, hearing aids are giving relief to millions.

I just wish I was one.

Fish oils have been shown to significantly decrease the risk of hearing loss, especially in people over fifty years of age. Fish oil contains extremely large amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids, also known as DHA: Docosahexaenoic acid, EPA: Eicosapentaenoic acid, and ALA: α-linolenic acid. These fatty acids are essential to your body because you body cannot produce or make them on its own; your body requires you to intake these nutrients through the foods you eat. Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil and other seafood act at a boost to your immune system, preventing the need for certain medicines that can cause hearing loss, as well as preventing diseases that can further it. It also works as an anti-inflammatory agent, preventing swelling in the ear and inner ear that could cause hearing loss. Omega-3 fatty acids also stimulate the brain in generalized manner, preventing stagnation or deterioration of certain areas of the brain that control hearing and the reception and processing of sound.

Fish are the primary source of these essential fatty acids. Fish do not actually produce the essential fatty acids themselves, but rather obtain it through eating other things. Smaller fish, such as sardines, minnows, and herring, may consume small, microscopic algae in the water that contain high amounts of Omega-3. This accumulates in their system as they develop, leading to extraordinary amounts of fatty acid in the oil of the fish when caught and processed. Bigger fish that predate on small fish, such as snapper, trout, bass, and others merely eat the smaller fish and accumulate the Omega-3 fatty acids in the same manner. However, due to a process called biomagnification, these larger fish can also rapidly accumulate toxins from their environment such as mercury, lead, and other heavy metals which are poisonous to humans. It is recommended to limit consumption of large amounts of larger fish for this very reason.

Fish oil can be readily found at any store that contains supplements and vitamins, and is available in both pure and softgel pill forms.
Some may prefer to cook with fish oils or drink it straight, while many others dislike the fishy taste and odor and prefer the softgel to maintain their nutrition and health levels while avoiding the peculiar flavor.

Adults and elders are most affected, and they may become anxious or depressive, because they find it difficult to adapt to their new condition. It’s not easy to either guess what others are saying to you or to ask them to repeat everything until you get it. While in the case of eyesight impairment, wearing glasses or contacts seems the most normal thing of all and nobody feels shameful, when it comes to hearing aids, people get shy and reluctant in wearing them, because they’d be perceived as being handicapped. That’s where hearing aids manufacturers help their clients to mask their instruments, by making them as small as technology permits and as stylish as possible. When suspecting an acquired hearing loss, anybody should go to the doctor, because some of them are reversible when treated from the incipient stage. It can be as simple as unclogging your ear canals from the earwax buildups that accumulate and cause conductive hearing loss. Although there are devices which enable you to perform this sort of ear canal cleansing at home, it would be advisable that you have it done in a medical environment, because the eardrum is extremely sensitive and you may easily harm it if you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t want to end up with an acquired hearing loss that gets permanent, would you?

There are many cases when patients stated that their hearing went back to normal in less than one month without any medical treatment. Idiopathic means of unknown origin, yet doctors suspect it may be triggered by a series of conditions such as ototoxic medication exposure, vascular diseases, tumors, stroke, acoustic neuroma, otitis media or viral diseases like infectious mononucleosis, rubella, mumps, measles, or herpes. There are even scientific studies which try to establish a connection between progressive idiopathic hearing loss and genetic mutations in the DNA, but all they managed to demonstrate was the need for more studies on a larger number of persons affected by this type of hearing impairment.
Healthcare professionals are trying various treatments, amongst which, steroids are thought to be the most effective for this condition. Other treatments may include anti virals, vitamins, diuretics or oxygen therapy.

Anybody who wakes up in the morning and experiences a hearing loss, no matter how mild, should immediately schedule an appointment with a medical specialist in order to determine the cause of this condition and to discover if it’s something reversible or an idiopathic hearing loss which will hopefully get cured by itself.

Human ears are naturally protected by a reflex that generates a contraction of the stapedius muscle in case of loud noises. If the medical exams show that the external and middle ear are healthy, yet the person doesn’t manifest this acoustic reflex, it might indicate a neural hearing loss. Unfortunately, there’s no surgical procedure to be able to repair a damaged nerve, therefore the condition is permanent. Hearing aids are useless, because they act upon the mechanism that transmits the sounds to the auditory nerve, and not on the nerve itself. If the nerve hasn’t completely lost its auditory function, a cochlear implant may be able to restore hearing in a certain degree, but if the nerve is completely damaged, such implants are useless. As neural hearing loss is usually occurring as consequence of an infectious disease, it is very important to treat any infectious diseases or chronic middle ear infections as soon as possible, in order to prevent them from reaching and damaging the auditory nerve.

When conductive hearing loss occurs in the middle ear, it usually has causes such as acute or serous otitis media, tympanic membrane perforation, temporal bone trauma or ossicular chain problems such as fusion or discontinuities. The fusion of the ossicular chain bones is known as otosclerosis and involves the small bones of the middle ear: the malleus, the incus and the stapes.

In persons exposed to intense noise, sometimes an obstruction may occur in either the oval window or the round window, causing inner ear conductive hearing loss. This can be resolved surgically, by removing the obstruction. The diagnosis of conductive hearing loss is done using a audiometry, a Weber test, a Rinne test, tympanometry or WEMP testing. Based on the results, a specialist will be able to determine whether they are dealing with a conductive hearing loss or a sensorineural affection.
Although in some cases of conductive hearing loss, like foreign bodies or tumors, surgery gives good results, in other situations, like the otosclerosis, specialists advise that patients use hearing aids and postpone surgery as much as possible.