Hearing Loss Treatments - A guide to Hearing Loss

Losing your hearing may seem like the end of the world but there are a range of treatments available which can deal with this.

These include:

If you are experiencing temporary hearing loss then treatment such as antibiotics, ear drops or auricular acupuncture can help. These will treat the cause of your complaint and restore your hearing to normal.

But there are types of hearing loss such as presbycusis (age-related hearing loss) which will get progressively worse over time. In this situation a hearing aid and/or lip-reading will help.

Contrary to popular belief, these do not restore hearing that has been lost but they amplify sounds so that you can hear them more clearly. If a hearing aid isn’t appropriate especially for sensorineural hearing loss then a cochlear implantmay be the answer. A cochlear implantis an electronic package which is designed to act as an electronic replacement for the cochlea thus enabling the wearer to hear sounds.

Other surgical procedures for hearing loss include stapedectomy, tympanoplasty, myringotomy, myringoplasty and mastoidectomy.

If your case doesn’t warrant surgery then drug therapy such as antibiotics, ear drops or auricular acupuncture can help. Antibiotics are a very common form of medication and are highly effective at treating bacterial infections such as otitis media but doctors often feel that most infections will clear up by themselves. The one exception to this is if the patient is a child aged under two and/or the ear infection has got progressively worse.

Ear drops are a standard form of treatment for ear conditions and are available either on prescription or over the counter. The over the counter variety are usually designed to treat an excess of ear wax and will be able soften this prior to removal. The ones available on prescription only are designed to treat chronic ear infections.

Auricular acupuncture is a form of complementary medicine in which the ear acts as a site of numerous acupuncture points which correspond with a particular area of the body. It can also be used to treat certain ear disorders such as tinnitus, excess ear wax and sinusitis.

Another complementary therapy is ear candles.

In reference to tinnitus: this unpleasant and distressing condition is where sufferers experience a range of noises within their ears and head which include whistling, ringing, buzzing and humming.

There are various forms of treatment available which include tinnitus maskers. These are a type of noise generator which emits static sounds with the aim of masking the discordant noises of tinnitus. The aim is that the sufferer will become used to these gentler sounds instead of the tinnitus noises.

Find out more about the various treatments for hearing loss.

Treatments : A guide to Hearing Loss



Hearing Loss

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