New cures are always being discovered. That might be a positive or a negative. You may think that you don’t really have to be all that careful about your hearing because you saw some promising research about possible future cures for deafness. By the time you begin exhibiting symptoms of hearing loss, you think, they’ll have found the cure for deafness.
That would be unwise. Without a doubt, it’s better to safeguard your hearing while you can. Scientists are making some phenomenal strides when it comes to treating hearing loss though, including some possible cures in the future.
Hearing loss is awful
Hearing loss is just something that takes place. It’s not necessarily because of something you did wrong. It’s just part of the aging process. But developing hearing loss has some major drawbacks. Not only do you hear less, but the condition can affect your social life, your mental health, and your overall wellness. You will even increase your risk of developing dementia and depression with neglected hearing loss. There’s plenty of evidence to connect neglected hearing loss to issues like social isolation.
Usually, hearing loss is a chronic and degenerative problem. So, as time passes, it will keep getting worse and there isn’t any cure. This doesn’t pertain to every kind of hearing loss but we’ll get to that soon. But “no cure” isn’t the same as “no treatment”.
We can help you maintain your levels of hearing and slow the progression of hearing loss. Frequently, this means using a hearing aid, which is often the ideal treatment for most types of hearing loss. So there are treatments for most people but there’s no cure. And those treatments can do a lot of good when it comes to improving your quality of life.
Two kinds of hearing loss
There are differences in types of hearing loss. There are two primary classes of hearing loss. You can treat one and the other can be cured. Here’s how it breaks down:
- Conductive hearing loss: When the ear canal gets obstructed by something, you get this type of hearing loss. Maybe it’s a bunch of earwax (a little gross, but it happens). Perhaps it’s swelling from an ear infection. Whatever it is, there’s something physically preventing sound waves from moving up to your inner ear. This kind of hearing loss will be cured when the source of the obstruction is eliminated.
- Sensorineural hearing loss: This is the more permanent type of hearing loss. Vibrations in the air are picked up by delicate hairs in your ears called stereocilia. Your brain is able to interpret these vibrations as sound. Unfortunately, these hairs are damaged as you go through life, usually by exceedingly loud noises. And once they’re damaged, the hairs don’t function. And when this happens your ability to hear becomes impaired. Your body won’t naturally regrow these hairs and we presently have no way to repair them. When you lose them, it’s forever.
Sensorineural hearing loss treatments
Sensorineural hearing loss may be irreversible but that doesn’t mean it can’t be treated. Given your loss of hearing, letting you hear as much as possible is the goal of treatment. Keeping you functioning as independently as possible, improving your situational awareness, and allowing you to hear conversations is the goal.
So, what are these treatment methods? Common treatments include the following.
Hearing aids
Most likely, the single most prevalent way of managing hearing loss is hearing aids. Hearing aids can be specially tuned to your specific hearing needs, so they’re especially useful. Using a hearing aid will let you better comprehend conversations and communicate with others over the course of your day to day life. Hearing aids can even delay many symptoms of social isolation (and the danger of depression and dementia as a result).
There are many different styles of hearing aid to pick from and they have become much more common. You’ll have to talk to us about which is ideal for you and your specific degree of hearing loss.
Cochlear implants
Sometimes, it will be necessary to bypass the ears entirely if hearing loss is total. That’s what a cochlear implant does. Surgery is used to insert this device into the ear. This device directly transmits sound, which it has translated into electrical energy, to your cochlear nerve. This allows your brain to convert those signals into sounds.
When a person has a condition called deafness, or total hearing loss, cochlear implants are sometimes used. So there will still be treatment options even if you have totally lost your hearing.
Novel advances
Scientists are continuously working on new ways to treat hearing loss.
In the past, curing hearing loss has been impossible, but that’s exactly what new advances are geared towards. Some of these advances include:
- Stem cell therapies: Your own stem cells are used in this type of therapy. The idea is that new stereocilia can be generated by these stem cells (those delicate hairs inside of your ears). It isn’t likely that we will have prescription gene therapy for a while, but for now, studies with animals are promising.
- Progenitor cell activation: So, stem cells in your ear originate the generation of stereocilia. Once the stereocilia develop, the stem cells go dormant, and they are then known as progenitor cells. New therapies aim to reactivate these progenitor cells, stimulating them to once more grow new stereocilia. Encouraging results for these novel therapies have come from early human trials. Most people noticed a substantial improvement in their ability to hear and understand speech. How long before these therapies are widely available, however, isn’t known.
- GFI1 Protein: Some researchers have discovered a protein that’s essential to growing new stereocilia. It’s hoped that by discovering this protein, scientists will get a better idea of how to get those stereocilia to begin to grow back. This treatment is very much still on the drawing board and isn’t widely available yet.
Don’t wait to get your hearing loss treated
There’s a lot of promise in these innovations. But it’s important to emphasize that none of them are available yet. Which means that it’s wise to live in the here and now. Be proactive about safeguarding your hearing.
A miracle cure isn’t likely to be coming soon, so if you’re coping with hearing loss, give us a call to schedule your hearing assessment.
References
https://hsci.harvard.edu/major-step-toward-treatment-leading-form-hearing-loss
https://news.mit.edu/2022/frequency-therapeutics-hearing-regeneration-0329
