Blog: Here’s to Your Legacy of Great Hearing, Lethbridge!

The bad news about cigarettes just seems to keep coming. According to research, the same chemicals that make cigarettes bad for the rest of your body make them bad for your hearing as well.

You’ve probably seen old photographs or movies featuring people using “ear trumpets” in order to hear. Looking a bit more like saxophones than trumpets, those long, curved, conical tubes collected sound at the larger end, funneling it through to a concentrated point at the other end, where the sound entered the ear.

Well! Summer is in the rear-view mirror. You can stop being concerned about overly-loud lawnmowers hurting your hearing, trapped swimming pool water leading to ear infections and sweaty weather getting unwanted moisture into your hearing aids.

Here are some tips on how to prevent it.

Hearing loss isn’t just for “old people.” The ability to hear can be damaged at any age, so it’s never too early to start protecting a child’s hearing. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 34 million children  worldwide have a disabling level of hearing loss, with 60% of those cases being due to preventable causes.

Even given everything we know today about the dangers of cigarettes, 1 out of every 10 Canadians is still smoking. If a loved one of yours is among them, maybe this bit of news will help you convince them to stop: It’s not just their lungs that are at risk; the bad stuff in cigarette smoke is bad for their hearing, as well.

When we hear about diabetes, it’s common to think about nerve damage, especially the kind that affects the feet and legs. Many diabetics develop infections in their lower extremities but aren’t aware of their seriousness, due to the numbing of diabetic nerve damage.

As we see with alarming frequency in various news stories these days, particularly those involving suicide, depression is taking an awful toll on people. Even the wealthy and famous are no match for it.

The roots of hearing loss are many, so doctors and hearing health professionals take a lot of factors into account when treating it.

Hearing loss can range from mild to profound. This graph shows which sounds can or cannot be heard depending on the degree of hearing loss. For example, someone with a severe hearing loss can hear an airplane or a motorbike close-by (very loud, hence lower end of the graph). However, they will not be able to hear normal-level speech or birdsong. A bird’s tweet is a high-pitched tone, therefore it’s on the right of the graph; low-pitched tones are on the left.

Being able to hear is an important part of an active and enjoyable life. Normal hearing allows us to connect with the world around us, to have conversations with friends, enjoy TV and music, and hear warning signals such as fire alarms or approaching traffic.

Sound waves enter the ear canal and cause the eardrum and middle ear bones to vibrate. This sends an electrical signal from the inner ear, via the hearing nerve to the brain.

Varying volumes, pitches, and durations of sounds can harm your hearing in different ways. Loud, close noises such as a rocket launch, ambulance, or airplane can injure your hearing immediately, while a motorcycle may only cause hearing loss after one hour in close proximity. And, if you’ve left your alarm clock blaring continuously for 8 hours — you’re not only late for whatever you had to do today — you’ve also suffered some level of hearing loss. These are just some examples of how volume, pitch, and duration of sounds can affect your hearing health.

Hearing loss means more than simply not hearing well – people with hearing loss have reported a range of problems that have a negative effect on their lives or on the lives of people around them.

Conductive Hearing Loss

Conductive hearing loss occurs when there is an obstruction in the outer or middle ear, impeding the sound waves from passing through the auditory pathway. Ear wax, infections, fluid behind the eardrum, perforations of the eardrum and otosclerosis (a stiffening of the bones in the middle ear) are the most common types of conductive hearing loss. Most outer and middle ear problems can be effectively managed with medical intervention.

Typical warning signs of hearing loss include:

As you have seen, hearing loss can have a potentially devastating effect on life. However, most people wait for years before seeking help to correct hearing loss. Having a hearing test and getting a hearing aid fitted offers multiple benefits, such as: