Though it’s true that there is currently no scientifically-verified method to cure tinnitus, researchers are hard at work to uncover one. In the meantime, a variety of tinnitus therapy options are available that can provide significant relief.

Think about it this way. When you have a headache, you take Tylenol in spite of the fact that it doesn’t “cure” your headache. Pain relievers merely make the pain fade into the background so that it doesn’t interfere with your day. Similarly, tinnitus therapies can help minimize the degree of symptoms so that your tinnitus has minimal affect on your daily schedule.

Seeing as every person reacts to tinnitus differently, there’s no one-size-fits-all treatment. You’ll need to work together with your provider to find the option that is most effective for you.

Here are some of those options.

Tinnitus Treatment Methods

If you suffer from tinnitus, you’ll want to examine the following treatment options with your hearing care or healthcare professional.

Treatment of the underlying ailment

While the majority of instances of tinnitus are not curable—and are a consequence of hearing loss or other non-reversible injury—certain cases are the result of an underlying physical condition. You’ll want to rule these out before pursuing other treatment options.

Potential physical causes of tinnitus include jaw joint problems (temporomandibular joint, or TMJ dysfunction), excessive earwax or other blockages in the ear canal, head and neck injuries, and responses to specific medications.

General Wellness

The degree of tinnitus symptoms can fluctuate depending on all-around health. Taking steps to boost general well-being is, consequently, one thing tinnitus patients can get started on right away to alleviate the intensity of symptoms.

Every individual is different, and what gets results for someone else may not work for you. The purpose is to experiment with different activities to discover what is most effective.

Strategies that have displayed promise include instituting a healthy diet, achieving plenty of physical exercise, meditating, and partaking in activities like bicycling, which can cover up the sounds of tinnitus.

Hearing Aids

Tinnitus is often associated with hearing loss and hearing injury. In reaction to decreased stimulation from external sound, the brain undergoes maladaptive changes that produce the perception of tinnitus.

By increasing the amount of environmental sound, hearing aids can help mask the tinnitus, making the sounds of tinnitus less conspicuous. Hearing aids in addition supply enhanced sound stimulation to the brain, which is thought to be neurologically favorable.

Sound Therapy

Sound therapy is basically the delivery of sound in the form of white noise, pink noise, or nature sounds to reduce the perceived burden or intensity of tinnitus.

Sound therapy functions by covering up the tinnitus and additionally by training the brain to recategorize the sounds of tinnitus as unimportant. This twofold effect can reduce the short and long-term severity of tinnitus.

Sound therapy can be delivered through special tabletop devices, but also through portable multimedia products and even through hearing aids. Medical-grade sound therapy makes use of individualized sounds that match the pitch of the individual’s tinnitus for the most effective results.

Behavioral Therapy

Bear in mind that tinnitus is the sense of sound in the brain when no outside sound is present. The affliction is, therefore, highly subjective, and each person reacts a unique way.

In fact, whether or not the person perceives tinnitus as debilitating or minor is largely due to psychological tendencies and not to the intensity or pitch of the tinnitus. That’s why cognitive/behavioral solutions to tinnitus therapy have been shown to be very effective.

A number of therapies are available, including Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction (MBSR) and Tinnitus-Retraining-Therapy (TRT), which blends cognitive-behavioral-therapy with sound therapy.

Drug Therapies

Even though there are no current FDA-approved medications for tinnitus, antianxiety and antidepressant prescriptions are regularly used to treat the behavioral responses to tinnitus. These medications do not appear to affect tinnitus itself, but may supply much-needed relief if thought to be appropriate by your doctor.

Experimental Therapy

The search for a tinnitus cure is ongoing. Several experimental therapies are in development or evaluation and new techniques become available every year. If your tinnitus is significant, and you’ve attained very little benefit from existing therapies, you may be a candidate for one of these advanced treatment options.

Visit the Experimental Therapies web page at the American Tinnitus Association website for more details.

Find Relief For Your Tinnitus

Tinnitus is currently being aggressively studied, with brand new discoveries and potential treatment methods reported every year. Even now, there are several promising treatments that, while not supplying a cure, can supply significant relief. You owe it to yourself to investigate these options, stay positive and persistent in your tinnitus care, and work with your provider to refine your treatment plan for the greatest results.

Did you know that you can help out future patients and your healthcare provider simultaneously simply by providing a brief, honest review online?

As more and more people count on online reviews in selecting a healthcare provider, simply sharing your experiences can convince someone to finally get the help they need. And, you can enable your hearing care provider to address any concerns that could strengthen the practice—in turn assuring a positive experience for future patients.

Are you ready to make a difference? The following are four additional reasons you should review your hearing care provider online.

1. It’s simple to post a review online

Many hearing care providers have a website with a page dedicated to reviews, and this is the best place to start. Simply navigate to the website, find the review link, and publish a brief review directly on the website—all in less time than it takes to brew a cup of coffee.

2. You can help people to finally get the help they need

According to a 2015 BrightLocal survey, 92 percent of consumers now read online reviews, and 80 percent will put their trust in online reviews as much as personal suggestions.

This means 8 out of every 10 people will take your review as seriously as a personal suggestion. If you had a pleasurable experience, providing a positive online review is by far the best way to get the message out, aiding other people to get the same high quality of care.

3. You can help provide a fair picture of the practice

Studies have shown that people are significantly more likely to publish reviews following a bad experience than after a positive one. This produces a negativity bias that can present the practice in a bad light.

Nobody is perfect—and no healthcare practice is either. Whether the negative reviews are called for or not, they will get posted. And if the positive experiences go undocumented, this will produce a distorted picture. If you think the practice deserves a good reputation, you can help them out by submitting a positive review.

4. You can help your hearing care provider enrich the patient experience

We believe in honest, respectful reviews, without consideration to whether those reviews are positive or negative. But we also feel that seeking to resolve issues privately is the ideal place to begin.

If you’ve had an unfavorable experience, it’s almost always best to first contact the practice privately. Quite often, the issues can be sorted out whereby both parties are satisfied. Although, if the issues were not dealt with to your satisfaction, you may believe that your negative experience must be shared.

In this case, in the name of honesty, you may want to publish respectful suggestions that can help the provider improve the patient experience. This ultimately helps the practice and brings about a more rewarding experience for potential patients.

To say that hearing loss is widespread is a bit of an understatement. In the US, 48 million people describe some level of hearing loss. Meaning, on average, for every five people you meet, one will have hearing loss. And at the age of 65, it’s one out of three.

With odds like this, how do you escape becoming one of those five?

To help you understand how to conserve healthier hearing all through your life, we’ll take a look at the causes and types of hearing loss in this week’s blog post.

How Healthy Hearing Works

Hearing loss is the interruption of normal hearing, so the best place to get started is with a familiarity of how normal hearing is supposed to work.

You can picture normal hearing as comprised of three primary processes:

1. The physical and mechanical conduction of sound waves. Sound waves are created in the environment and move through the air, like ripples in a pond, ultimately making their way to the external ear, through the ear canal, and finally striking the eardrum. The vibrations from the eardrum are subsequently transferred to the middle ear bones, which then stimulate the tiny nerve cells of the cochlea, the snail-shaped organ of the inner ear.
2. The electrical transmission from the inner ear to the brain. The cochlea, once stimulated, converts the vibrations into electrical impulses that are transmitted via the auditory nerve to the brain.
3. The perception of sound in the brain. The brain perceives the electrochemical signal as sound.

What’s fascinating is that what we perceive as sound is nothing more than sound waves, oscillations, electric current, and chemical reactions. It’s a wholly physical process that leads to the emergence of perception.

The Three Ways Normal Hearing Can Be Disrupted

There are three primary types of hearing loss, each interfering with some aspect of the normal hearing process:

1. Conductive hearing loss
2. Sensorineural hearing loss
3. Mixed hearing loss (a mix of conductive and sensorineural)

Let’s take a closer look at the first two, including the causes and treatment of each.

Conductive Hearing Loss

Conductive hearing loss impedes the physical and mechanical conduction of sound waves to the inner ear and cochlea. This is due to anything that obstructs conduction.

Examples include malformations of the outer ear, foreign objects inside of the ear canal, fluid from ear infections, pierced eardrums, impacted earwax, and benign tumors, among other causes.

Treatment of conductive hearing loss includes getting rid of the obstruction, treating the infection, or surgical correction of the malformation of the outer ear, the eardrum, or the middle ear bones.

If you have conductive hearing loss, for instance from impacted earwax, you could possibly start hearing better instantly after a professional cleaning. With the exception of the more serious forms of conductive hearing loss, this type can be the fastest to treat and can restore normal hearing entirely.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Sensorineural hearing loss impedes the electrical conduction of sound from the cochlea to the brain. This is due to the damage to either the nerve cells within the cochlea or to the auditory nerve itself.

With sensorineural hearing loss, the brain is provided with compromised electrical signals, reducing the volume and clarity of sound.

The principal causes of sensorineural hearing loss are:

• Genetic syndromes or fetal infections
• Normal aging (presbycusis)
• Infections and traumatic accidents
• Meniere’s disease
• Cancerous growths of the inner ear
• Side effects of medication
• Abrupt exposure to extremely loud sounds
• Long-term exposure to loud sounds

Sensorineural hearing loss is in most cases associated with exposure to loud sounds, and so can be prevented by circumventing those sounds or by shielding your hearing with earplugs.

This form of hearing loss is a little more complicated to treat. There are no present surgical or medical procedures to heal the nerve cells of the inner ear. However, hearing aids and cochlear implants are very effective at taking on the amplification duties of the nerve cells, resulting in the perception of louder, clearer sound.

The third type of hearing loss, mixed hearing loss, is basically some combination of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss, and is treated accordingly.

If you have any difficulty hearing, or if you have any ear pain or lightheadedness, it’s a good idea to pay a visit to your physician or hearing professional right away. In almost every case of hearing loss, you’ll get the best results the earlier you treat the underlying problem.

What’s your favorite song?

Without knowing you, it would be almost impossible for me to guess, due to the large number and variety of music styles. But it would be safe to assume that your favorite song most likely brings about a strong emotional response.

When people describe their favorite music, they generally describe it as occasionally giving them “the chills.” You’ve probably observed this with your favorite music. But the intriguing part is that experiencing this phenomenon is not reliant on any one genre of music.

Researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute had participants bring in their favorite music. Although each participant reported an intense emotional reaction, the music genres themselves ranged from classical to jazz to punk rock. With so much variety, what was responsible for this underlying emotional reaction?

The answer, as it turns out, is dopamine. Scientists at McGill University discovered a direct link between the elation generated by music and the discharge of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain.

Dopamine is a chemical released in the brain that affects emotional regulation, pleasure, and rewards. According to Richard Depue, professor at Cornell University: “When our dopamine system is activated, we are more positive, excited and eager to go after goals or rewards, such as food, sex, money, education or professional achievements.”

So music is associated with dopamine, and dopamine to motivation, but the music itself is less significant than the psychological reaction it brings about. This leads to some compelling implications.

Let’s return to your favorite song. Has it ever given you “the chills” or created a intense emotional response? If so, you’ve just discovered one of the most effective methods to release more dopamine into your system, which is a brain hack for positivity and motivation.

So what kind of music should you listen to achieve these positive emotional reactions? The main insight from the above research is that it depends completely on your tastes. The music can be joyful, sad, upbeat, slow, instrumental, classical, rock, or hip-hop. The secret is taking inventory of the emotional reactions you receive from various songs and genres.

Once you understand how you react viscerally to certain songs, you can make use of those songs to bring about the sought after emotional reaction, producing the optimal emotional state for each situation.

As an example, if rock ‘n’ roll gets you pumped up and stimulated for a workout, you may want to listen to your favorite Metallica album while heading to the gym. On the other hand, if you’re looking to loosen up after a hectic day at the office, perhaps the best of Beethoven is the approach to take.

And last, if you have hearing loss, consider that the latest hearing aid technology that can stream music wirelessly from portable devices directly to your hearing aids. This puts you in a unique position to make the most of this research.

Simply dial in your favorite songs on your phone or portable device, deliver it wirelessly to your hearing aids, and let the dopamine start flowing.

By the way, what is your favorite song? And which songs or genres elicit strong responses or specific moods for you?

Of the entire 48 million Americans that describe some level of hearing loss, 60 percent are presently in the workforce. Which means millions of Americans head to work every day with less than perfect hearing.

We know that hearing loss negatively influences general physical, social, and mental health, but what about the economic consequences? Does hearing loss impact salary, and does the treatment of hearing loss help?

The Better Hearing Institute set out to answer these questions in a study titled The Impact of Untreated Hearing Loss on Household Income. Here’s a brief overview of the study, the results, and the ramifications.

The Study

The Better Hearing Institute (BHI) started by sending out a brief screening survey to 80,000 households across the US. This aided to identify around 16,000 individuals with hearing loss.

Using the list of 16,000 individuals with hearing loss, more detailed surveys were delivered to the following two groups:

1. A random sample of 3,000 individuals with hearing loss that presently own hearing aids.
2. A random sample of 3,000 individuals with hearing loss that do not presently own hearing aids.

The seven page survey included questions about demographics, hearing loss, hearing aid use and satisfaction, future plans, and employment information. Each respondent was also asked several questions about their hearing loss degree, which produced one of four classifications from mild to profound.

With all of this data, the researchers could now:

1. Compare income to the intensity of hearing loss
2. Compare income to those who used hearing aids and those who did not

The results reveal that hearing loss impacts income

People with profound hearing loss were found, on average, to earn $12,000 less annually than those with mild hearing loss. The results also plainly showed that as the severity of hearing loss increased, income fell proportionally.

And the overall economic cost to society?

According to the study, the estimated cost of lost earnings due to untreated hearing loss in the US is $122 billion, which results in a projected $18 billion of uncollected federal taxes.

Having said that, all is not lost. The study also showed, most importantly, that using hearing aids was found to offset the income effects of hearing loss by 50 percent.

Implications for employees with hearing loss

Does the use of hearing aids really bring about a surge in income? Isn’t it possible that those who have a higher salary are simply in a better position to pay for hearing aids, so are consequently more likely to own and use them?

It’s a legitimate question, but there’s numerous reasons to believe that wearing hearing aids can, in fact, enhance income, through greater productivity. In relation to employment, hearing loss can:

• Take people out of the job market, or out of contention for promotion, creating higher levels of unemployment and underemployment.
• Cause people to make mistakes on the job, limiting promotions.
• Create communication obstacles, restricting productivity. Most jobs require effective verbal communication, and this is considered as a major aspect of job performance.
• Reduce overall social and mental well being, bringing about depression, fatigue, impaired cognition, and a corresponding decrease in job performance.

For these reasons, treating your hearing loss will most likely enhance your job performance, and, as a result, your earning potential.

What are your thoughts? Have you encountered problems at work caused by hearing loss, and have hearing aids helped?

When comparing the many factors that go into your career choice, we bet that your long-term hearing health is fairly low on the priority list—if it’s there at all. We understand.

And even though we don’t really think that your future ability to hear should dictate your career choice, we do think you should be informed of the risk—so that you can make use of proper hearing protection and conform to the best practices to conserve your hearing.

As stated by the CDC, occupational hearing loss is one of the most common occupational health problems in the United States. Twenty-two million individuals are exposed to hazardous noise levels on the job, and a projected $242 million is expended annually on worker’s compensation for hearing loss.

So this isn’t a minimal concern; the personal and social consequences are immense.

If you opt to follow one of the following eight career paths—or currently work in one—take additional safety measures to take care of your hearing.

Below are 8 of the loudest industries.

1. Military – Virtually all firearms can generate 140 decibels (dB) of noise. This is considerably above the safe threshold of 85 dB, and has the potential to generate instant and irreversible hearing damage. Explosions and other sounds of warfare add to the danger. This is why hearing loss and other hearing problems represent the most widespread injuries for veterans.

2. Music – Live shows can reach over 110 decibels, exposing performers to hours of continually damaging noise. That explains why research has demonstrated that musicians are four times more likely to experience noise-induced hearing loss—and 57 percent more likely to suffer tinnitus—than other people.

3. Manufacturing – According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, hearing loss is the most regularly reported work-related condition in manufacturing. Manufacturing equipment can reach decibel levels of well above 100.

4. Carpentry – Much like manufacturing, carpenters use machinery that can reach damaging decibel levels. A power saw alone can reach 110 dB.

5. Aviation – A jet take-off at 25 meters registers at about 140-150 decibels. The decibel level decreases as distance increases, but pilots and airport employees should protect against the noise.

6. Emergency Response – Ambulance and fire-engine sirens can generate decibel levels of over 130. In fact, a group of firefighters has recently taken legal action against a siren manufacturer after experiencing hearing loss on the job.

7. Farming – Some tractors and agricultural machinery can produce well over 100 decibels. Agricultural workers are encouraged to keep machinery running smoothly, to take regular breaks from the noise, and to use hearing protection.

8. Racing – The sound of a single race car can reach over 120 decibels, and a race in full swing can reach 140. Participants, fans, and workers at racing events are all at risk for developing hearing loss.

Remember, extended exposure to any noise above 85 decibels heightens your risk for acquiring hearing loss. If you find yourself in a high-volume career, take these three precautions (if you can’t avoid the source of the noise):

1. Increase your distance from the sound source when feasible
2. Take occasional rest breaks from the sound to limit time of exposure
3. Use custom earplugs to limit volume

Taking these three easy steps (particularly # 3) will allow you to pursue the career of your choosing without needing to give up your ability to hear in the future—because wearing earplugs now is better than wearing hearing aids later.

Our ears might possibly be our most mistreated body part. We pierce them, subject them to deafening noise, shove cotton swabs inside them, and burn them with ear candling. Despite supplying us with one of our most critical senses, we rarely give our ears, or our hearing, much gratitude or consideration.

That is, right until there are problems. Then, we recognize just how crucial healthy hearing really is—and how we should have practiced proper ear care earlier. The secret is to recognize this before the harm is done.

If you desire to avoid issues and preserve your hearing, stay away from these 4 hazardous practices.

1. Ear Candling

Ear candling is a method of eliminating earwax, and additionally, as one researcher put it, “the triumph of ignorance over science.”

Here’s how ear candling is carried out. One end of a thin tube made of cotton and beeswax is inserted into the ear. The other end is set on fire, which supposedly creates a vacuum of negative pressure that sucks earwax up into the tube.

Except that it doesn’t, for two reasons.

First of all, the ear candle doesn’t generate negative pressure. As explained by Lisa M.L. Dryer, MD, earwax is sticky, so even if negative pressure was created, the pressure called for to suck up earwax would rupture the eardrum.

Second, while the wax and ash resemble earwax, no earwax is actually discovered within the ear candle following the therapy. Clinical psychologist Philip Kaushall tested this by burning some ear candles the standard way and burning other candles without inserting them into the ear. The residue was the same for both groups.

Ear candling is also dangerous and is fervently opposed by both the FDA and the American Academy of Otolaryngology (physicians specializing in the ear, nose, and throat), if you require any additional reasons not to do it.

2. Using cotton swabs to clean your ears

We’ve written about this in other posts, but inserting any foreign object into your ear simply presses the earwax against the eardrum, generating an impaction and possibly a ruptured eardrum and hearing loss.

Your earwax contains beneficial antibacterial and lubricating characteristics, and is naturally eliminated by the regular motions of the jaw (from speaking and chewing). All that’s needed from you is normal showering, or, if you do have issues with excessive earwax, a professional cleaning from your hearing practitioner.

But don’t take our word for it: just look at the back of the packaging of any pack of cotton swabs. You’ll discover a warning from the manufacturers themselves advising you to not enter the ear canal with their product.

3. Listening to exceedingly loud music

Our ears are simply not equipped to handle the loud sounds we’ve discovered how to create. In fact, any sound louder than 85 decibels has the potential to produce permanent hearing loss.

How loud is 85 decibels?

An average conversation registers at about 60, while a rock performance registers at over 100. But here’s the thing about the decibel scale: it’s logarithmic, not linear. That means the leap from 60 to 100 decibels does not make the rock concert twice as loud, it makes it about 16 times as loud!

Similarly, many earbuds can produce a comparable output of 100 decibels or greater—all from within the ear canal. It’s no real surprise then that this can create permanent harm.

If you prefer to preserve your hearing, ensure that you wear earplugs to concerts (and on-the-job if necessary) and maintain your portable music player volume at about 60 percent or less of its max volume (with a 60 minute listening time limit). It may not be cool to wear earplugs to your next concert, but premature hearing loss is not much cooler.

4. Overlooking the signs of hearing loss

And finally, we have the unsettling fact that individuals have the tendency to wait nearly 10 years from the start of symptoms before seeking help for their hearing loss.

That means two things: 1) people needlessly suffer the negative effects of hearing loss for 10 years, and 2) they make their hearing loss a great deal more difficult to treat.

It’s true that hearing aids are not perfect, but it’s also true that with modern technology, hearing aids are extremely effective. The extent of hearing you get back will be based on on the seriousness of your hearing loss, and given that hearing loss tends to get more serious as time passes, it’s best to get tested and treated as soon as you notice any symptoms.

If you suffer from hearing loss, you might think it would be obvious, right?

Well, that’s exactly the issue; most people assume it would. Unfortunately, while severe or sudden hearing loss is easy to identify, mild to moderate developing hearing loss can be far too subtle to observe. That’s the reason why, on average, people will wait more than five years from the beginning of symptoms to seek help.

Imagine hearing loss as a gradual leak in a tire. It’s challenging to detect the everyday changes, and it’s only when the tire goes flat, and your car is no longer drivable, that you choose to take action.

Regrettably, while tires are replaceable, your hearing is not. It can be in some measure restored, but the sooner you deal with your hearing loss the more of your hearing you’ll get back.

So how can you recognize the symptoms of early-stage hearing loss? Here are some of the hidden signs that indicate you should get a professional hearing exam.

1. Trouble hearing specific sounds

Commonly people believe that hearing loss impacts all types of sounds. Therefore, if you can hear some sounds normally, you presume you can hear all sounds normally.

Don’t get caught up into this manner of thinking. The reality is that hearing loss predominately impacts higher-frequency sounds. You may observe that you have particular difficulty hearing the voices of women and children, as an example, owing to the higher pitch.

This may possibly lead you to think that the individuals you can’t hear are mumbling, when in fact, you have high-frequency hearing loss.

2. Depending on context to comprehend speech

Somebody is talking from behind you and you can’t understand what they’re saying unless you turn around. You are forced to depend on body language, and possibly lip reading, for supplementary information to fill in the blanks.

Speech is composed of an array of frequencies, from low to high, with consonants representing the high frequencies and vowels representing the lower frequencies. The issue for people with high-frequency hearing loss is that consonants communicate the the majority of the meaning yet are the most difficult to hear.

If you have hearing loss, speech comprehension is just like reading a sentence with missing letters. Most of the time, you’ll get it right, but when you don’t, you may find yourself responding inappropriately or asking people to repeat themselves frequently. You may also have difficulty hearing on the phone.

3. Difficulty hearing in noisy surroundings

With mild hearing loss, you can typically decode what other people are saying, albeit with lots of effort. As soon as background noise is introduced, on the other hand, the task often becomes overwhelming.

You may discover that it’s overwhelming to hear in group settings or in noisy environments like restaurants or social gatherings. The contending sounds and background noise are muffling your already affected hearing, making it exceedingly difficult to concentrate on any one source of sound.

4. Listening Fatigue

Finally, you may notice that you’re more fatigued than normal after work or after engagement in group settings. For individuals with hearing loss, the persistent fight to hear, together with the effort to grasp incomplete sounds, can contribute to serious exhaustion, which is a non-obvious sign of hearing loss.

Hearing loss is progressive and becomes more difficult to treat the longer you delay. If you experience any of these signs and symptoms, even if they’re only minor, we strongly encourage scheduling a hearing test. By taking action sooner, you can preserve your hearing and stay connected to your family and friends.

Murphy’s Law informs us that “if anything can go wrong, it will.” A better variation might be that “things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance.”

That’s the reason we change the oil in our cars, switch out the filters, and rotate the tires. We’re attempting to protect our investment and stretch its life.

You should think of hearing aids in the same manner. If you give things a chance to go wrong, they will; but if you’re proactive in your care and maintenance, your hearing aids can persist and function properly for several years.

So what are some of the things that can go wrong? Below are the three principal threats to your hearing aids and what you can do to safeguard against them.

1. Physical breakdown

Opponent # 1 is physical damage. Hearing aids contain sensitive electronics that are prone to damage from shock. To protect against this, be sure you store your hearing aids in their storage cases whenever you’re not using them.

An effective rule of thumb is that your hearing aids should be either in your ears or in the storage case at all times. Leaving your hearing aids exposed on any surface is just inviting Murphy’s Law to come and bump them off. Likewise, when you’re putting in and removing your hearing aids, it’s a good idea to do this over a soft surface in the event they fall.

In addition, take the time to check and replace the batteries frequently. You’re not doing the electronics any favors by forcing the hearing aids operate on low battery power.

2. Moisture

Electronic devices and water do not mix, which anyone who’s dropped a mobile phone in the kitchen sink knows all too well. Once submerged, there’s very little that can be done. But it requires a lot less than complete submersion in water to wreck your hearing aids.

Water, in the form of mist, can still work its way into the hearing aids and start wreaking chaos. Because of this, you should avoid using hairspray, insect spray, or any other sprays while wearing your hearing aids. In addition, keep in mind that radical changes in temperature can create condensation, for instance going from a climate-controlled room to the outdoors. If this happens, make sure to dry off any moisture that develops.

We also suggest not storing your hearing aids in the bathroom, as the condensation can create problems. This is an additional reason that your bedside table drawer is probably the best location to keep your hearing aids when not in use.

3. Earwax and dirt

Even if you’ve safeguarded your hearing aids against physical damage and water with proper storage and the prevention of moisture, you’ll still have to protect against adversary # 3: dirt and grime.

Earwax, dirt, and debris can build up on the hearing aids, blocking the speakers, ports, and other components. To protect against this, 1) sustain proper ear hygiene, and 2) clean and sanitize your hearing aids daily.

In terms of cleaning and sanitizing your hearing aids, make sure to use only the tools supplied by your hearing professional. Your hearing professional can provide cleaning kits and directions specifically for your type of hearing aids.

And finally, think about acquiring a hearing aid sanitizer. Sanitizers make use of ultraviolet light to thoroughly kill pathogens, all while supplying a safe place for storage.

The effects of hearing loss appear obvious, including the stress of the continuous struggle to hear and the impact this can have on relationships. But what if the repercussions went further, and could actually alter your personality?

Research from the University of Gothenburg reveals that this may be the case. The researchers examined 400 men and women aged 80-98 over a six-year period. The researchers assessed several physical, mental, social, and personality criteria through the duration of the study, including extroversion, or the inclination to be outgoing.

Interestingly, the researchers couldn’t connect the decrease in extraversion to physical factors, cognitive decline, or social challenges. The single factor that could be linked to the decrease in extraversion was hearing loss.

While people ordinarily become less outgoing as they get older, this study demonstrates that the change is amplified in those with hearing loss.

The repercussions of social isolation

Diminished extraversion, which can result in social isolation in the elderly, is a major health risk. In fact, a meta-analysis of 148 studies analyzing the relationship between social isolation and mortality found that a lack of supporting social relationships was correlated with increased mortality rates.

Additionally, social isolation is a major risk factor for mental illness, including the onset of major depression. Being less socially active can also result in reduced physical activity, contributing to physical problems and weight issues, and the shortage of stimulation to the brain—ordinarily received from group interaction and dialogue—can lead to cognitive decline.

How hearing loss can create social isolation

The health effects of social isolation are well established, and hearing loss seems to be linked to diminished social activity. The question is, what is it about hearing loss that tends to make people less disposed to be socially active?

The most obvious answer is the difficulty hearing loss can cause in group settings. For those with hearing loss, it is often exceptionally challenging to follow conversations when several people are talking at the same time and where there is a great deal of background noise.

The constant struggle to hear can be fatiguing, and it’s sometimes easier to abandon the activity than to battle through it. Hearing loss can also be embarrassing, and can produce a sensation of solitude even if the person is physically part of a group.

For these reasons, among others, it’s no surprise that many people with hearing loss choose to pass up the difficulties of group communication and social activity.

What can be done?

Hearing loss brings about social isolation largely due to the difficulty people have communicating and participating in groups. To render the process easier for those with hearing loss, think about these tips:

• If you suffer from hearing loss, consider utilizing hearing aids. Today’s technology can treat virtually all instances of hearing loss, creating the amplification required to more effortlessly interact in group settings.
• If you have hearing loss, speak with the group in advance, educating them about your hearing loss and promoting ways to make communication easier.
• For those that know someone with hearing loss, try to make communication easier. Minimize background noise, choose quiet areas for communication, and speak directly and clearly to the person with hearing loss.

With a bit of awareness, preparation, and the suitable technology, we can all make communication a little easier for individuals with hearing loss.