The much-ignored aspect of health is the ear and hearing health. With ageing or inadequate care, your hearing health would deteriorate. Therefore, it’s of utmost importance to have early diagnosis and getting regular hearing consultation to prevent excessive damage to your eardrums.
Here is a detailed guide with useful tips to help you maintain good ear health:
What Are The Major Causes of Hearing Damage?
Whether it’s a newborn, teenager, or an elderly person, the three major causes impacting your hearing are:
Ear Wax
In fact, the ear is a self-cleaning organ. The wax automatically moves towards the ear canal for removal with a damp cloth.
However, at times, there can be a build-up of wax towards the inner ear, especially in babies and kids. It can block the sound away and make hearing difficult. With regular hearing consultation, you can prevent the problem.
If you are wearing a hearing aid, make sure to visit a hearing aid centre. Get a consultation from certified and trusted ENT specialists like doctors from Perfect Hearing clinics which are available in Johor, Penang and Kuala Lumpur.
Ear Infection
Ear infections not only cause momentary hearing loss but also affect speech development.
Bacterial or fungal infections can be quite painful and unbearable. In the case of ‘glue ear’, the fluid becomes trapped in the inner ear without any symptoms. The fluid can impact your child’s hearing. An ENT specialist can identify the problem during the ear examination.
Noise
Hearing loss due to high-intensity noises is an increasing problem in our society. The intensity of exposure, length of exposure and frequency of exposure increases the risk of hearing loss.
Teach your kids to avoid listening to high volume music from an early age. Excessive noise can cause real damage to their eardrums.
6 Tips for Protecting Your Hearing Health
1. Earplugs To Protect Against High-Intensity Sounds
If you work at a pistol shooting range or any industrial area where you are constantly exposed to extremely high volume noises, you should always wear earplugs. Visiting clubs and concerts or using lawnmowers and chainsaws at the workplace can create high-intensity sounds.
If you have such work commitments, you should visit an ear specialist regularly.
2. Precaution is Utmost During Air Travel
Aeroplane making rapid altitude or landing can cause discomfort and stuffiness in the ear. If you already have ear problems, it’s better to chew gum or use earplugs to counter the impact.
3. Avoid Using Cotton Swabs
Using cotton swabs is a rather common method used to clear up ear wax. This method is, however, incorrect. Your ears can self-clean the wax. Cotton swabs can only push the wax towards the eardrums reducing your hearing capacity. Or you can accidentally damage your eardrum.
4. Use Sunscreen For Your Ears
While applying sunscreens, usually we forget to protect the skin of the ear. Sunscreen can prevent your ears from skin cancer. So, keep the ear skin protected too. Or you can wear a hat during a sunbath under the scorching heat of the sun.
5. Protect Your Ears From Moisture
Excessive moisture calls for fungal and bacterial infections within the ear canal. Swimmer’s ears and other kinds of ear infections can affect your hearing ability. So, avoid long-term exposure to moisture and always towel dry your ears after the shower. Excessive wax usually comes out towards the external ear for easy removal too. If water has accidentally entered the inner ear, you can tilt your head towards one side and pat from the other side of the head to remove the water.
6. Regular Checkups are Important
You can ask your health care expert to perform a hearing test during regular checkups. Why? Because you don’t stop hearing sounds on a fine morning all of a sudden, it happens gradually. The process may begin during your teenage and you lose your hearing in your 40s.
If not monthly, pay a regular visit to the ENT specialist twice a year. If you live in Penang, the ear specialist in Penang would leave no stones unturned to ensure that your hearing isn’t deteriorating.
In a Nutshell
As with ageing, dementia, arthritis and other diseases line up, hearing loss is one less-noticed factor during its early stages. So, always make sure to maintain good ear health to prevent any greater loss at an old age.
For more information, visit our ENT specialist and get their opinion.