Ears Need Care to Hear

Hearing loss can be prevented with sufficient care and timely intervention. Hearing impairment can be successfully treated through early testing and the use of hearing aids, but you can avoid these extra costs and hassles through the regular care of your ears to protect them from damage that can lead to hearing loss.

One of the most basic forms of preventing hearing loss is protecting your ears from loud noises through the use of earplugs. Studies suggest that around 15% of Americans have some form of hearing loss resulting from exposure to loud environments at home or leisure and at work. Noisy work environments or rock concerts, and loud equipments such as chainsaws or lawnmowers can add to the risk of developing hearing loss. Always use earplugs when operating loud machinery, or when exposing yourself to loud environments.

The World Health Organization reports that 1.1 billion teenagers and young adults from all over the world have an increased risk of suffering from hearing loss that is noise-induced as a result of the inappropriate use of audio instruments. Children and young adults nowadays are constantly blocking out the world and creating their own personal space bubble by “zoning out” by listening to loud music using earbuds. You can limit this exposure to loud music by implementing the 60/60 rule, by listening to music for 60 minutes each day at a maximum of 60% of the volume. Since earbuds are placed directly into the ears they pose a greater risk of developing hearing loss. You can lessen this risk by wearing headphones that are worn over the ears.

Another common method of developing hearing loss appears counter-intuitive at first but is strongly recommended by hearing specialists. Stop the use of cotton swabs to clean your ears. Although you may think that using cotton swabs will keep your ears clean, what you are actually doing is push the wax deeper into your ear canal as well as posing an increased risk of causing trauma to the ear drum. Furthermore, ear wax is nature’s way of protecting you from dust and debris which can harm your ears and removing this wax through the use of cotton swabs is actually exposing your ears directly to harmful environmental pollutants that can damage your ears permanently.