What’s the reason for wearing hearing aids? More than likely it’s to hear better, right? Well, yeah, for many individuals that’s going to be the reply. Helping your hearing is what a hearing aid is made to do.

But that’s not the actual motivation for wearing them. We use them so we don’t lose touch with the people around us…so we can not only hear interactions, but also take part in them. Hearing aids help us make certain we don’t miss the key lines of our favorite show, the punchline of a joke, or our favorite music.

Put another way, there are many of benefits, overlooked advantages, that that you will get if you use hearing aids. And you will probably use your hearing aids regularly rather than leaving them put away because of these boons. So we can be certain that these benefits deserve to be showcased.

Clearer Sound

So it’s not just that your hearing aid raises the volume of sounds. Sounds are made clearer also. The reason for this is that your hearing doesn’t wane symmetrically: certain frequencies are the first to go. So the sounds around you will be easier to perceive and clearer.

On top of that, modern hearing aids have all sorts of settings that can be adjusted (or that can adjust themselves) depending on the room you’re in, the audio characteristics of that room, etc. So that you are able to hear more clearly, hearing aids precisely increase the volume of specific frequencies while leaving others untouched.

A More Lively Social Life

If the sounds around you are easier to understand, you’re more inclined to take part in social activity and that’s a big improvement. Just give some thought to this, you’re less likely to jump in with a clever joke at a crowded restaurant if you can’t hear what anyone is saying. But when your hearing aids are doing most of the work for your ears and all the voices are nice and crisp, you’ll know exactly when to come in with your hilarious joke.

When you can hear cleanly, clearly, and don’t need to ask people to repeat themselves, social situations become less difficult; instead, socializing goes back to being something you can enjoy again.

Improved Concentration

When you’re struggling to hear, a large part of your mental effort is focused on one task: making sense of the mess. You will need to redirect so much mental energy towards interpreting jumbled or partial audio information that your general concentration takes a dip. So when your hearing aids are working correctly, you can find yourself focusing with far greater ease, whether you’re doing your taxes, listening to the news, or watching TV.

You Will be Safer

Research indicates that individuals with untreated hearing loss have a higher danger of falling down. There are a couple of ways that hearing aids can help with fall protection. The first is by stopping falls in the first place. It’s easier to walk around without stumbling on something when you have better concentration (and therefore be less mentally exhausted.) Next, some hearing aids have automated tech that activates when the wearer experiences a fall. If a fall happens, friends, family, or emergency services can be automatically called.

Better Cognition

When you wear hearing aids, it’s not simply your focus that improves. You also get a mental improvement too. When you have a difficult time hearing and start to separate yourself, the pathways in your brain, which are responsible for interpreting sounds, can start to deteriorate (pretty much, it’s an involved process that we’re simplifying to save time). A hearing aid will help maintain several mental cognitive activities, meaning your self esteem, mood and mental health could all benefit from wearing your hearing aids.

Get The Benefits Now Rather Than Later

Taking the slow approach has no real advantage if you’ve already detected a decline in hearing. Hearing aids can provide both instant and long term benefits. So schedule a hearing test today with a hearing care expert.

We’ve been looking forward to summer activities all year: swimming in the pool, visiting the beach, and other activities that could harm your ears. You could find yourself in external scenarios or exposed to other loud sounds this summer that are hidden dangers to your ears. Any noises over 80 decibels could lead to harm to your ears, while lasting loss of hearing can happen in swimming pools or other bodies of water. You have to take precautions and be mindful of your environment in order to protect your hearing this summer season. Read on to identify the summer’s 6 hidden threats to your ears.

Wear Hearing Protection at Concerts

Summer is concert time, but even if you go to a venue, you still should attend to your hearing. Concerts can have volumes over 90 decibels, even at outdoor concerts, which is inside the danger zone of hearing loss. That’s the reason why it’s definitely a good strategy to wear earplugs whether you’re going to a show indoors or outdoors. You can still hear the sounds with earplugs it’s just dampened a little bit. If you’re going to a performance with young children, consider getting them a heavy duty pair of earmuffs because children have more vulnerable hearing than adults.

Your Ears Can be Damaged by Fireworks

Honestly, there are a lot of reasons to avoid fireworks in the summer. This is not about the skilled 4th of July displays, we mean the backyard fireworks that trigger hundreds of injuries during the summer season. Home fireworks reach decibel levels of over 155 which can damage your ears as well as causing hand problems, loss of sight and backyard fires. This year, on the 4th of July, enjoy the fireworks from a little further away and leave the fireworks to the pro’s.

Mowers Can Cause Hearing Loss

If you love to take care of your yard, your edger, trimmer, and mower are your best friends. But the muffled sensation in your ears is a sign that your hearing has taken damage. That’s because the lawn tools, which are constantly loud, impact your hearing over time. No doubt you’ve noticed landscapers using some form of hearing protection, you should take a cue from them and wear earmuffs or earplugs next time you take care of your lawn to ensure your ears doesn’t get injured.

Beaches And Pools, What You Should do to Protect Your Ears

Millions of people suffer from swimmer’s ear every summer, which happens when bacteria-laden water gets trapped inside your ear canal. Swelling and painful earaches are the result when the bacteria infects the ear. These bacteria are generally found in lakes and rivers but could also be found in pools and hot tubs if the water isn’t properly treated. As long as you have your ears treated by a hearing expert you will probably be fine, and no irreversible loss of hearing will occur. To be safe, when your swimming in your pool, use special swimmers earplugs and keep the chemical balance correct to decrease the likelihood of getting swimmers ear.

Water Sports And Boats

Summertime is a taste of freedom for the people who love to be out on the water, smelling the salt air from the ocean or the fresh breeze of the lake. But, jet ski and boat engines can be noisy,they can get up to more than 100 decibels. Continual subjection to that much noise for a period of about 15 minutes can result in long-term hearing damage. In this case also, putting on a set of throw away foam earplugs is a smart strategy.

Your Hearing Can be Damaged by Car Races

It doesn’t matter what type of auto racing you love, stock cars, midgets, motorcycles, drag racing, Formula 1. If you attend many auto-races this summer, they all present a risk. It’s estimated that sound levels can exceed 120 decibels at many races, which is certainly inside the danger zone for hearing injury. As mentioned earlier, your children should wear muffs whereas you should wear earplugs at least. If you don’t, you might not get to enjoy the sound of those engines in the future.

Aging is one of the most common indicators of hearing loss and let’s be honest, as hard as we may try, aging can’t be escaped. But did you know that loss of hearing can lead to between
loss issues that are treatable, and in some cases, avoidable? You could be surprised by these examples.

1: Diabetes

Over 5,000 American adults were examined in a 2008 study which found that individuals who were diagnosed with diabetes were two times as likely to have mild or more hearing loss when tested with mid or low-frequency sounds. Impairment was also more probable with high-frequency sounds, but not as severe. It was also revealed by investigators that people who had high blood sugar levels but not high enough to be defined as diabetes, put simply, pre-diabetic, were 30 percent more likely to have hearing loss than people with healthy blood sugar. A more recent 2013 meta-study (you got it, a study of studies) discovered that the relationship between hearing loss and diabetes was persistent, even while taking into consideration other variables.

So the association between loss of hearing and diabetes is pretty well established. But why should diabetes put you at greater chance of getting hearing loss? Science is somewhat at a loss here. Diabetes is related to a wide variety of health concerns, and particularly, can cause physical injury to the extremities, eyes and kidneys. One hypothesis is that the the ears could be similarly affected by the condition, blood vessels in the ears being harmed. But it may also be associated with general health management. A 2015 study that investigated U.S. military veterans underscored the connection between hearing loss and diabetes, but most notably, it found that individuals with unchecked diabetes, in other words, people suffered even worse if they had uncontrolled and untreated diabetes. It’s necessary to get your blood sugar tested and speak to a doctor if you suspect you might have undiagnosed diabetes or might be pre-diabetic. It’s a smart idea to get your hearing checked if you’re having trouble hearing too.

2: Falling

All right, this is not really a health condition, since we aren’t talking about vertigo, but experiencing a bad fall can start a cascade of health concerns. And though you might not think that your hearing could impact your likelihood of tripping or slipping, a 2012 study uncovered a significant link between hearing loss and risk of a fall. While analyzing over 2,000 adults between the ages of 40 to 69, researchers found that for every 10 dB rise in hearing loss (as an example, normal breathing is about 10 dB), the chance of falling increased 1.4X. Even for people with minimal hearing loss the relationship held up: Within the last twelve months people who had 25 dB of hearing loss were more likely to have had a fall than individuals with normal hearing.

Why should having trouble hearing make you fall? While our ears play a significant role in helping us balance, there are other reasons why loss of hearing could get you down (in this case, quite literally). Although this research didn’t delve into what had caused the participant’s falls, it was suspected by the authors that having difficulty hearing what’s going on around you you (and missing a car honking or other important sounds) could be one problem. But if you’re struggling to pay attention to sounds near you, your split attention means you might not be paying attention to your physical environment and that may end up in a fall. The good news here is that treating hearing loss could potentially reduce your chance of having a fall.

3: High Blood Pressure

A variety of studies (such as this one from 2018) have demonstrated that hearing loss is linked to high blood pressure and some (including this 2013 study) have established that high blood pressure could actually speed up age-related hearing loss. It’s a link that’s been seen fairly consistently, even while controlling for variables like noise exposure and whether you’re a smoker. The only variable that is important appears to be gender: If you’re a male, the connection between loss of hearing and high blood pressure is even stronger.

Your ears are quite closely related to your circulatory system: along with the numerous tiny blood vessels in your ear, two of the body’s main arteries run right by it. This is one explanation why individuals with high blood pressure often suffer from tinnitus, it’s actually their own blood pumping that they’re hearing. (That’s why this kind of tinnitus is called pulsatile tinnitus; you’re hearing your pulse.) But high blood pressure may also potentially be the cause of physical damage to your ears which is the primary theory behind why it would quicken loss of hearing. Each beat has more pressure if your heart is pumping harder. The smaller blood vessels in your ears could potentially be injured by this. lifestyle changes and medical intervention, high blood pressure can be controlled. But if you believe you’re suffering with hearing loss even if you think you’re not old enough for the age-related stuff, it’s a good idea to consult a hearing care professional.

4: Dementia

Chances of dementia may be higher with hearing loss. A 2013 study from Johns Hopkins University that was documented after nearly 2,000 individuals in their 70’s during the period of six years discovered that the danger of mental impairment increased by 24% with only minor loss of hearing (about 25 dB, or slightly louder than a whisper). 2011 research by the same researchers which tracked people over more than 10 years discovered that the worse a subject’s hearing was, the more likely it was that he or she would get dementia. (They also found a similar connection to Alzheimer’s Disease, albeit a less statistically substantial one.) Based on these conclusions, moderate hearing loss puts you at three times the danger of somebody who doesn’t have loss of hearing; one’s danger is raised by nearly 4 times with extreme hearing loss.

It’s scary information, but it’s important to recognize that while the connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline has been well recognized, researchers have been less successful at sussing out why the two are so strongly linked. If you can’t hear well, it’s difficult to interact with people so in theory you will avoid social situations, and that social isolation and lack of mental stimulation can be incapacitating. Another hypothesis is that loss of hearing overloads your brain. In essence, because your brain is putting so much of its recourses into comprehending the sounds near you, you may not have very much energy left for recalling things such as where you put your medication. Staying in close communication with friends and family and keeping the brain active and challenged could help here, but so can treating loss of hearing. If you’re able to hear clearly, social situations become much easier to handle, and you’ll be able to focus on the necessary stuff instead of trying to understand what someone just said. So if you are coping with loss of hearing, you should put a plan of action in place including getting a hearing exam.

If you have eyeglasses, you understand you still need to visit your eye doctor once a year, right? Because your eyes change as time passes. In fact, no part of your body is static, your eyes aren’t and, the reality is, your ears aren’t either. That’s why, just like you do with your eyes, it’s necessary to keep getting your ears tested even after you get a pair of hearing aids.

Unfortunately, many people miss those regular checkups. It’s easy to forget to go in to consult with your hearing care professional because you’ve been occupied with enjoying your life. Or perhaps lately, work has been stressful. Or it’s possible you’ve just been so happy with your hearing aids that you haven’t had a reason to get another appointment. That should be a good thing, right?

In the long run, for individuals suffering from hearing impairment, it is even more essential to have even one follow-up consultation. In spite of that, ongoing attention is often ignored. According to one survey, only 33% of seniors with hearing aids also used regular hearing services.

After You Get Hearing Aids, Why Would You Need to Get Regular Examinations?

Your hearing is not static. It changes over time. When these changes happen, you need to modify your hearing aids to compensate. Occasional testing helps monitor any variations in hearing and catch concerns early.

It may be a good idea to have regular hearing exams for other reasons also. Here are various reasons why you should make it to your hearing examinations:

• Calibrating Hearing Aids: There may be need for yearly calibration of your hearing aids based on tiny changes in your hearing despite the stability of your general hearing. Without this calibration, your hearing aids could slowly become less effective.
• Hearing decline: Even if you use a hearing aid, your hearing may keep degenerating. If this degeneration is slow enough, you probably won’t recognize it’s taking place without the assistance of a hearing screening. Hearing decline can often be slowed with appropriate alterations to your hearing aids.

It’s important to get your hearing aids cleaned professionally from time to time along with keeping track of changes in your hearing. We can help make certain your hearing aid is working the way it should, clean all the small parts and keep it in top notch condition.

If You Don’t Follow up With Routine Check Ups There is a Consequence

If you get frustrated with your hearing aids, say because they don’t work the way you thought they would, you might simply stop wearing them and that would be a problem. Hearing aids make your all-around health better and also, needless to say, makes your hearing better. If you stop using your hearing aids, not only can your hearing decline faster, you might not recognize it right away. Increased danger of hearing accidents, along with cognitive decline, have been related to hearing loss.

In terms of having your hearing aids working at an ideal level, frequent check ups are your best bet. Annual hearing exams or screenings can help you be sure your hearing aids are performing as they should and that your hearing remains protected. So schedule your hearing consultation right away.

Noise-related hearing loss doesn’t just impact people who work in loud environments, like construction workers or heavy metal roadies. Recreation related noise exposure can be just as dangerous as work related noise exposure. What type of exposure are we discussing? Music, gaming, streaming video or anything else that you would listen to through earbuds or headphones.

You might be surprised to find out that a mobile device can get that loud. The typical pain threshold for human hearing is close to 150 db which is in the range of these devices. Your ears will actually start to feel pain at this volume. So what can you do to protect against this sort of noise-related hearing loss?

The volume level here is significant. Listen with the volume at no more than 60% for 60 minutes or less at a stretch (how long you listen for also matters), this is known as the 60/60 rule.

Make a Setting on Your Hearing Aids For Listening to Music

Be certain, if you’re wearing hearing aids, you don’t try to drown out other noises by turning your streaming music up too high. And there are better ways to listen to music so consult us about that also. Hearing aids aren’t designed to increase the quality of music like they do with voices so if you’re really into music, you may have observed this. We may be able to make adjustments to decrease noise and feedback while increasing some frequency to better the quality of sound while listening to music.

Choosing Headphones

When shopping for headphones there are numerous options, specifically if you wear hearing aids. There are various things to consider, although it’s largely a matter of personal preference.

Headphones That go Over The Ears

While the foam-covered speakers that came with your old Walkman are basically no longer used, over-the-ear headphones have had a resurgence. Often surprisingly costly, they feature lots of color possibilities and celebrity endorsements, and of course, exceptional sound quality. And unlike those little foam pads, these go over the entire ear, limiting outside sounds.

Main-stream perception is that these are less dangerous than in-ear headphones because the source of the sound is further away from your eardrum. But because the speakers are larger they are often capable of much louder sound level. Also, noise-canceling might help you ignore the crying baby on your flight, but in other scenarios, it can block sounds you need to hear (such as a honking car). But on the upside, you don’t have to contend with outside sound so you can enjoy your music at lower levels.

Earbuds

The standard earbuds are well known for inferior sound quality, but because they come with your phone a lot of people still use them. Plus, with newer models that don’t have a headphone jack, sticking with Apple’s earbuds can just be easier.

The drawback, aside from the inferior sound quality, is that basic earbuds don’t cancel outside sounds, so that it’s more likely that you will crank up the volume. It’s generally assumed that inserting earbuds so close to your eardrum is the primary concern but it’s really the volume.

Noise Blocking Earbuds

More comfortable than ordinary earbuds, models that have a round rubber tip are the choice of many because they help stop outside sound. A seal that stops outside sound from getting in is formed by the rubber tip which conforms to the shape of the ear. Not to sound like a broken record, but these types of earbuds have the same drawbacks as the other two (it’s all about the volume), as well as carrying the same caution as over-the-ear headphones (they can block out warning sounds). Obviously, these won’t work for you if you wear hearing aids.

A number of pairs might need to be tested before you find headphones that are right for you. Your expectations, acoustically, will differ dependant on what kind of usage you usually give them. Listening to your tunes at a safe volume and coming across headphones that assist you in doing that is essential.

How to be Sure Your Hearing is Safeguarded

How can you be sure it’s safe? There’s an app for that…If you use a smartphone, you can download the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s free Sound Level Meter app. You can get different apps, but research has discovered that the accuracy of these other apps is spotty (also, for whatever reason, Android-based apps have been shown to be less reliable). That prompted NIOSH to develop an app of their own. The app allows you to measure external noises, but you can also measure the sound coming from your device’s speakers, so you will know exactly how much volume your ears are subjected to. It’s a little bit of work, but putting in place these types of preventative measures can help safeguard your hearing.

Your brain can be helped by treating your hearing loss. At least, that’s according to a new study from a University of Manchester study group. These analysts considered a team of around 2000 participants over a time period of nearly twenty years (1996 to 2014). The outstanding conclusions? Treating your loss of hearing can delay dementia by up to 75%.

That is not a small figure.

But is it actually that surprising? The importance of the finding, of course, is still useful, that kind of statistical relationship between hearing loss treatment and the battle against dementia is important and eye-popping. But it coordinates well with what we already know: as you get older, it’s essential to treat your hearing loss if you want to hold off cognitive decline.

How am I Impacted by This Research?

Scientific research can be inconsistent and confusing (should I eat eggs, should I not eat eggs? What about wine? Will that help me live longer?). The reasons for that are long, varied, and not all that pertinent to our discussion here. The bottom line is: yet further proof, this research reveals untreated loss of hearing can lead to or exacerbate cognitive decline including dementia.

So for you personally, what does this indicate? It’s straightforward in many ways: if you’ve observed any possible indications of hearing loss, come see us as soon as you can. And, if you need a hearing aid, you should absolutely start wearing that hearing aid as advised.

Hearing Aids Help Prevent Dementia When You Use Them Regularly

Unfortunately, not everyone falls right into the habit of using a prescribed pair of hearing aids. The usual reasons why include:

• The way that the hearing aid is advertised to work, doesn’t seem to be the way it’s currently working. Many people need to have their settings adjusted, and calibration problems are definitely something that can be addressed by our hearing specialists.
• The hearing aid doesn’t feel as if it fits well. If you are having this problem, please let us know. We can help make it fit better.
• Voices are difficult to understand. In some cases, it takes time for your brain to adapt to recognizing voices again. There are some things we can recommend, such as reading along with an audiobook, that can make this process easier.
• How hearing aids look concerns you. You’d be amazed at the variety of models we have available now. Some models are so discreet, you may not even notice them.

Clearly using your hearing aids is important to your health and future cognitive abilities. If you’re struggling with any of the above, come see us for an adjustment. Consulting your hearing expert to make certain your hearing aids are working for you is just part of the process and it requires time and patience.

It’s more significant than ever to deal with your loss of hearing specifically in the light of the new findings. Hearing aids are protecting your hearing health and your mental health so it’s crucial to be serious about treatment.

Dementia And Hearing Aids, What’s The Connection?, What’s The Link?

So why are these two conditions dementia and hearing loss even linked to begin with? Social isolation is the prominent theory but experts are not completely sure. Many people, when faced with loss of hearing, become less socially active. Sensory stimulation is the basis of another theory. Over time, if a person loses sensory stimulation, like hearing loss, the brain receives less activity which then leads to cognitive decline.

Your hearing aid allows you to hear better. And that can help keep your brain active, delivering a more effective natural safeguard against dementia and cognitive decline. That’s why taking care of hearing loss can slow dementia by as much as 75% percent and why it shouldn’t be surprising that there is a connection between the two.

It’s well understood, that over time, overeating will be unhealthy to your health. Obesity is related to a number of health concerns. You can add hearing loss to high cholesterol, heart disease, and diabetes as a possible problem. It’s calculated that around 48 million people in the U . S ., about 20% of this country’s population, suffer from loss of hearing, and around double that amount of adults, 93 million, are obese. These figures are shocking and point to a significant health problem throughout the country.

How Is Obesity Related to Hearing Loss?

Various studies have revealed that there’s a relationship between obesity and hearing loss. Exactly what that link is, is still being investigated, it’s assumed that loss of hearing and obesity have a relationship because of its impact on our circulatory system. What’s more, obesity is associated with high blood pressure and diabetes, which are also connected to hearing loss.

The inner ears are filled with tiny hairs that detect sound in the ear. So that they can work effectively, these little hairs, called stereocilia, require a steady blood flow. Because of obesity, the flow of blood is restricted throughout the body because, in order to keep the blood flowing inside the body, the heart needs to do additional work, which means that there is less than ideal amount of blood flow available to your ear. This could irreversibly damage the ears. As all of these conditions effect the blood flow, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure impact the inner ear in the same way.

It’s especially important to keep control of your weight as you age since age-related hearing loss and high-fat mass index are also connected. Your body’s metabolism doesn’t work as fast or as well as it did in the past, which is the reason why you should try to stick to healthy habits that you started when you were younger.

Good nutrition and exercise are great for your overall health and your hearing.

Treatment Options For Obesity-Associated Hearing Loss

It’s a possibility that you may not be able to recover your lost hearing if it’s brought on by obesity, nonetheless, in order to find out how extensive your loss of hearing is, it’s important to get your hearing screened. If the injury is permanent, you might need a hearing aid or other device to begin hearing correctly again.

If the injury is not that severe, you might need to see your doctor about initiating a diet and exercise plan to minimize the effect your weight has on your well being before it gets any worse. Your doctor should recommend a cardio intensive exercise routine that will get your blood pumping and improve your general health. You will likely find that other areas of your life also get better, mental health, as an example, since regular exercise has been proven to lessen depression.

How to Prevent Obesity-Related Hearing Loss

A healthy diet and a regular exercise regime are essential to avoiding obesity-related disorders like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. staying healthy can also assist in keeping your hearing in superior shape. A plan that can assist you to achieve your goals and that is individualized for you can be planned by a nutritionist. The nutritionist can make certain you’re consuming the ideal blend of nutrients in nutritious foods, including foods that have plenty of iron, because of course, a lack of iron in your diet can aggravate your loss of hearing and lead to tinnitus.

Find out more concerning hearing loss and how you can hear better with the proper treatment method.

Earplugs can be helpful if you’re subjected to loud sounds, like, something as straightforward as a snoring spouse, or a lawnmower in your backyard, or going to an arena to see a concert. In the first two instances, they can help safeguard your hearing by decreasing the volume. In the last instance, they bring down the decibels plus help protect your sanity (and possibly your marriage) by allowing you to get a good night’s sleep. But are these ear protectors, really, harming your ears?

Why Utilize Earplugs at All?

It’s a fairly simple case for wearing earplugs: When used properly, earplugs can minimize your exposure to excessive volume levels and thereby protect your hearing. After you leave a loud venue, say a football game where the announcer keeps telling the crowd to, GET LOUD, whenever the opposing team kicks off, you’ve most likely noticed that your hearing seems different, and you may also experience symptoms of tinnitus. Those tiny hairs are bent by this sort of noise exposure and that’s the reason why this happens. In a day or two, when the hairs have recovered, it generally goes back to normal.

But in certain situations, there is a relentless attack on those tiny hairs, this is especially true if you work in a noisy trade like construction or in an airport. In this case, those hairs never recover, they are permanently damaged. There are just about 16,000 of those little cells inside each cochlea, but up to 50% of them can be destroyed or at least damaged before you would see the change in a hearing test.

How Could Your Ears be Harmed by Using Earplugs?

In terms of safeguarding your hearing, you’d think it would be a no-brainer to utilize earplugs. But if your subjected to loud noises on a regular basis, this seems even more obvious (like on the job or with the aforementioned snoring significant other), headphones that limit, but don’t completely cancel, sound or over the head earmuffs are a much better idea. Earplugs aren’t the best choice for daily use but are a smarter choice for one time occasions like a sports event or a concert.

Why? For one, earwax. In order to protect themselves, your ears produce earwax, and if you’re constantly wearing earplugs, they will make more of it, and the earplugs will push it in further. Tinnitus and other concerns can be the result of impacted earwax.

An ear infection can also be the result from overuse of earplugs. If you continually wear the same pair, and you don’t clean them properly from use to use, they can become breeding grounds for bacteria. Ear infections are, at a minimum, an uncomfortable inconvenience. If neglected, in the worst situations, they can cause an ear infection.

How Can You Make Use of Earplugs Safely?

Earplugs nevertheless have a strong positive, whether it’s protecting your ears or getting a good night’s sleep. Using them in the proper way and using the correct kind is the key to success. Foam earplugs are the least costly, which is helpful because you really shouldn’t use them more than once, the cushy, porous material is a germ’s paradise. Wax or silicone earplugs are reusable, but you have to keep them clean, use warm water and mild soap to wash them, and don’t put them back in your ears until they’re thoroughly dry. Accumulation of moisture can cause mold and bacteria so store your earplugs in a well ventilated container.

If you want or need to wear earplugs regularly, you might want to consult us about having custom-made earplugs. These are constructed from unique molds of your ears, they can be reused and because they’re fitted to your ears, their comfortable. But it’s important not to forget, good earplug hygiene can prevent hearing damage.

Around half of those over 70 and one in three U.S. adults are impacted by age related loss of hearing. But despite its prevalence, only about 30% of older Americans who suffer from loss of hearing have ever had hearing aids (and that figure goes down to 16% for those under 69!). At least 20 million Americans are dealing with neglected loss of hearing depending on what numbers you look at; though some reports put this closer to 30 million.

As people get older, they overlook getting treatment for loss of hearing for a variety of considerations. (One study found that just 28% of people who reported they had hearing loss had even had their hearing checked, and most didn’t seek additional treatment. For some individuals, it’s like wrinkles or gray hair, just part of growing old. Hearing loss has long been easy to diagnose, but thanks to the significant developments that have been made in hearing aid technology, it’s also a highly manageable situation. That’s significant because a growing body of data reveals that treating hearing loss can help more than just your hearing.

A recent study from a research team based at Columbia University, adds to the body of knowledge connecting hearing loss and depression.
They assess each participant for depression and administer an audiometric hearing exam. After a range of factors are considered, the researchers discovered that the odds of having clinically substantial symptoms of depression increased by around 45% for every 20-decibel increase in hearing loss. And to be clear, 20 dB is very little noise. It’s about the same as rustling leaves and is quieter than a whisper.

The general connection isn’t astonishing but it is surprising how rapidly the odds of suffering from depression go up with only a little difference in sound. There is a large collection of literature on depression and hearing loss and this new study adds to that research, like this multi-year analysis from 2000 which found that mental health worsened along with hearing loss, or this paper from 2014 that people had a significantly higher chance of depression when they were either clinically diagnosed with loss of hearing or self reported it.

The good news is: the connection that researchers suspect exists between loss of hearing and depression isn’t chemical or biological, it’s social. Everyday interactions and social situations are generally avoided because of the anxiety due to problems hearing. Social alienation can be the result, which further feeds into feelings of depression and anxiety. It’s a pattern that is very easily broken despite the fact that it’s a horrible one.

Several researchers have found that managing hearing loss, typically using hearing aids, can help to reduce symptoms of depression. Over 1,000 people in their 70s were looked at in a 2014 study that revealing that people who used hearing aids were significantly less likely to have symptoms of depression, but due to the fact that the authors didn’t considered the data over a period of time, they could not pinpoint a cause and effect relationship.

But other studies which followed people before and after using hearing aids bears out the proposal that managing hearing loss can help alleviate symptoms of depression. Although this 2011 study only checked a small group of people, a total of 34, the analysts found that after three months using hearing aids, all of them revealed significant improvement in both depressive symptoms and cognitive functioning. The exact same outcome was found from even further out by another minor study from 2012, with every single person six months out from starting to wear hearing aids, were still experiencing less depression. And in a study originating in 1992 that observed a larger group of U.S. military veterans suffering from hearing loss discovered that a full 12 months after beginning to use hearing aids, the vets were still experiencing fewer symptoms of depression.

You’re not alone in the intense struggle with loss of hearing. Get in touch with us for a hearing test today.

The word psoriasis usually conjures up images of people with skin problems like the ones on all those advertisements. Psoriasis impacts your overall health and not only your skin. Psoriasis is commonly misunderstood and minimized, due to a lack of knowledge of how psoriasis impacts sufferers as well as the serious conditions that can be related to this disorder. Though plaques on the skin are its most noticeable sign, they’re indicative of what psoriasis can do throughout the body: The risk of metabolic problems that are increased by persistent irritation and cardiovascular disease.

Psoriasis is also linked to another problem according to a different recent study: Hearing loss. Published in The Journal of Rheumatology, The link between hearing impairment, psoriatic arthritis, and mental health were looked at in this research. Psoriatic arthritis is a form of psoriasis where inflammation is centered around the joints, causing swelling, difficulty with movement, and soreness. The tell-tale plaques may not be experienced by people who suffer from psoriatic arthritis.

In the same way as with rheumatoid arthritis (and similar to psoriasis), psoriatic arthritis is an autoimmune illness, the sufferer’s body is basically attacking its own healthy tissue. But psoriatic arthritis varies from rheumatoid arthritis in that it’s usually asymmetrical (so you could have it in one knee but not the other), and it doesn’t only impact joints but leads to painfully swollen fingers and toes while it targets sufferer’s nails and eyes.

Based on the findings of this recent study, inflammation from psoriatic arthritis may also affect hearing. The study compared the self-reported hearing loss of people who have psoriatic arthritis, people who have psoriasis but not psoriatic arthritis, and a large control group of people with neither problem. They found that hearing impairment was more likely to be documented by the group that suffered from psoriasis, and audiometric screening supported the self-reports. Even when other risk considerations are taken into consideration, people diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis were significantly more likely to suffer from loss of hearing than either {the control group or psoriasis sufferers}.

But that’s not to say there’s no link between psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and loss of hearing. A 2015 study found that individuals who have been diagnosed with psoriasis are at a substantially higher danger of developing sudden sensorineural loss of hearing, generally known as sudden deafness. With sudden sensorineural hearing loss, people’s ability to hear diminishes substantially in three days or less. It has many possible causes, but scientists hypothesize that people with psoriasis are in greater danger because of the kind of fast inflammation that occurs during a flare-up of psoriasis symptoms. If this happens in or near the cochlea, it could impede hearing. This type of hearing loss, in many circumstances, can be helped by treatments that alleviate psoriasis., but hearing aids are often recommended when other interventions don’t appear to be working.

If you suffer from psoriatic arthritis or psoriasis, it’s worthwhile to monitor your hearing. Plan your annual healthcare appointment along with regular hearing tests. The inflammation due to these diseases can lead to inner ear injury, which can cause loss of balance and psoriatic arthritis. psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis are both also linked to depression and anxiety, which can both aggravated hearing loss. Other health issues, such as dementia, can be the outcome if you don’t detect loss of hearing early.

Awareness is key, and cooperating with your doctors and regularly getting your hearing checked can help you keep in front of symptoms with early intervention. You shouldn’t have to compromise your standard of living for psoriasis or for hearing loss, and all the difference is having the right team by your side.