Your ears enable hearing by detecting sound waves, which your brain interprets as comprehensible information. Once sound reaches your ears, your outer ear funnels it into the ear canal like a reverse megaphone; then your middle ear carries it to the inner ear, and the auditory nerve transmits it to the brain.
Hearing what’s around you lets you interpret critical cues that help you avoid running into objects and alert you to possible harm before it reaches you. Struggling with auditory issues like ear infections affects how well you hear. Numerous conditions can cause these infections, but so can everyday things you do without realizing it.
To help with habits that affect hearing and other auditory problems, the Florida Ear Nose Throat & Facial Plastic Surgery Center, along with Dr. Elvira Livigni De Armas and her Audiology department, offers solutions to improve and heal.
This illness occurs frequently in children but can also affect adults, and it can be viral or bacterial. Infections can be either acute or chronic, with the latter possibly causing permanent damage over time. When it occurs, the ear becomes inflamed, and fluid builds up behind the eardrum.
Ear infections occur in either the outer, middle, or inner ear and can cause vomiting, fever, pain, fatigue, pressure or a feeling of fullness in your ears, discharge, hearing problems, and itching or irritation. In children, you can also expect pulling or tugging on their ears, not reacting to certain sounds, irritability, restlessness, loss of appetite, and losing balance easily.
If you’re already struggling with infections, certain things you may be doing regularly can be exacerbating the problem, such as:
We all have a favorite tune to turn up with headphones on, but doing so can worsen ear infections and other hearing issues. Combined with chronic ear infections, the resulting aural issues can cause long-term problems.
Similar issues can happen from routine exposure to loud sounds from concerts, heavy traffic, or construction work.
Often results from using a cotton swab to remove earwax, but it also carries the risk of pushing it further in and damaging the eardrum.
Whether you’re smoking or around someone who’s smoking, doing so restricts blood flow to the inner ear, keeping hair cells from getting the oxygen and nutrients they need. Over time, it causes lifestyle hearing loss and affects people with or without ear infections.
Hearing damage, in the form of tinnitus and muffled hearing, especially when ill with ear infections, significantly increases the risk of further hearing loss.
Certain drugs pose a higher risk of inner ear damage, such as high-dose aspirin, chemotherapy, and some antibiotics.
To lower the risk of further hearing damage when dealing with ear infections or other issues, follow these basic steps:
Ear infections can go away on their own in mild cases, but they can become chronic, and the combination of them and other bad habits can worsen hearing over time. Make an appointment with Dr. Livigni De Armas and the Audiology team at Florida Ear Nose Throat & Facial Plastic Surgery today for help with ear infections and other auditory issues.
