Causes and Types of Hearing Loss

Many things outside of our control can cause hearing loss such as:

• Aging (presbycusis)
• Infections (otitis media)
• Injury to the head/ear
• Birth defects or genetics
• Ototoxic reaction to drugs or cancer treatment

What we do have control over is noise: sounds make delicate hair cells in our inner ears vibrate and if we overload them with exposure to loud noises, we damage them. This results in sensorineural hearing loss and even tinnitus, also known as ringing in the ears.

The hair cells that vibrate most quickly are the ones that enable us to hear high frequency sounds, like birds singing and children speaking. Sadly, these are the ones that are damaged first by loud noise, such as construction, rock music, or gunfire.

Keep in mind that pretty much everyone who believes they have one “good” ear actually has two “bad” ears. The truth is, when one ear is slightly better than the other, we learn to favor that ear when we are straining to hear. Most types of hearing loss affect both ears fairly equally and a very large majority of our patients need hearing instruments for both ears.