Causes
Click this link to view the Hearing Loss Association of America's 4-minute video Hearing Loss Causes and Prevention
The following information comes from the Mayo Clinic website. Click here to go to the Mayo Clinic website where this information is located. It is not medical advice and it is not meant to substitute for the medical advice of a physician.
Some causes of hearing loss include damage to the inner ear, a buildup of earwax, infections and a ruptured eardrum. To understand how hearing loss occurs, it can be helpful to understand how you hear.
How you hear
Hearing occurs when sound waves reach the structures inside your ear, where the sound wave vibrations are converted into nerve signals that your brain recognizes as sound.
Your ear consists of three major areas: outer ear, middle ear and inner ear. Sound waves pass through the outer ear and cause vibrations at the eardrum. The eardrum and three small bones of the middle ear — the hammer, anvil and stirrup — amplify the vibrations as they travel to the inner ear. There, the vibrations pass through fluid in the cochlea, a snail-shaped structure in the inner ear.
Attached to nerve cells in the cochlea are thousands of tiny hairs that help translate sound vibrations into electrical signals that are transmitted to your brain. The vibrations of different sounds affect these tiny hairs in different ways, causing the nerve cells to send different signals to your brain. That's how you distinguish one sound from another.
How hearing loss can occur:
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Damage to the inner ear. Aging and prolonged exposure to loud noise may cause wear and tear on the hairs or nerve cells in the cochlea that send sound signals to the brain. When these hairs or nerve cells are damaged or missing, electrical signals aren't transmitted as efficiently, and hearing loss occurs. Higher pitched tones may become muffled to you. It may become difficult for you to pick out words against background noise. Heredity may make you more prone to these changes. This type of hearing loss is known as sensorineural hearing loss, which is permanent.
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A gradual buildup of earwax. Earwax can block the ear canal and prevent conduction of sound waves. Earwax blockage is a cause of hearing loss among people of all ages. This causes conductive hearing loss, which usually can be restored with earwax removal.
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Ear infection and abnormal bone growths or tumors. In the outer or middle ear, any of these can cause hearing loss.
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Ruptured eardrum (tympanic membrane perforation). Loud blasts of noise, sudden changes in pressure, poking your eardrum with an object and infection can cause your eardrum to rupture and affect your hearing.
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Aging. Exposure to sounds over the years can damage the cells of your inner ear.
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Heredity. Your genetic makeup may make you more susceptible to ear damage.
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Occupational noises. Jobs where loud noise is a regular part of the working environment, such as farming, construction or factory work, can lead to damage inside your ear.
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Environmental noise. Exposure to explosive noises, such as from firearms and fireworks, can cause immediate, permanent hearing loss. Other recreational activities with dangerously high noise levels include snowmobiling, motorcycling or listening to loud music. Personal music players, such as MP3 players, can cause lasting hearing loss if you turn the volume up high enough to mask the sound of other loud noises, such as those from a lawn mower.
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Some medications. Drugs, such as the antibiotic gentamycin and certain chemotherapy drugs, can damage the inner ear. Temporary effects on your hearing — ringing in the ear (tinnitus) or hearing loss — can occur if you take very high doses of aspirin, other pain relievers, anti-malarial drugs or loop diuretics.
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Some illnesses. Diseases or illnesses that result in high fever, such as meningitis, may damage the cochlea.
