Because you’re so hip, you rocked out in the front row for the entire rock concert last night. It isn’t exactly hearing-healthy, but it’s enjoyable, and the next day, you wake up with both ears ringing. (That’s not as fun.)
But what if you awaken and can only hear out of one ear? Well, if that’s the situation, the rock concert may not be the cause. Something else must be happening. And when you develop hearing loss in only one ear… you may feel a bit alarmed!
Also, your overall hearing might not be working properly. Usually, your brain is sorting out information from both ears. So it can be disorienting to get signals from one ear only.
Hearing loss in one ear creates issues, here’s why
Generally speaking, your ears work as a functional pair. Just like having two forward facing eyes helps you with depth perception and visual sharpness, having two outward facing ears helps you hear more accurately. So when one of your ears quits working properly, havoc can happen. Here are some of the most prevalent:
- Identifying the direction of sound can become a real challenge: Somebody calls your name, but you have no clue where they are! It’s exceptionally hard to triangulate the direction of sound with only one ear working.
- When you’re in a noisy setting it becomes very hard to hear: Loud places like event venues or noisy restaurants can become overwhelming with only one ear working. That’s because all that sound appears to be coming from every-which-direction randomly.
- You have trouble detecting volume: Just like you need both ears to triangulate location, you kind of need both ears to determine how loud something is. Think about it like this: You won’t be sure if a sound is far away or merely quiet if you don’t know where the sound was originating from.
- Your brain becomes tired: Your brain will become more fatigued faster if you can only hear out of one ear. That’s because it’s failing to get the complete sound spectrum from just one ear so it’s working overly hard to compensate. This is particularly true when hearing loss in one ear suddenly occurs. This can make all kinds of tasks throughout your day-to-day life more taxing.
So how does hearing loss in one ear occur?
Hearing experts call muffled hearing in one ear “unilateral hearing loss” or “single-sided hearing loss.” Single sided hearing loss, unlike common “both ear hearing loss”, usually isn’t caused by noise related damage. So, other possible factors need to be considered.
Here are some of the most common causes:
- Abnormal Bone Growth: In really rare cases, the cause of your hearing loss may actually be some atypical bone growth getting in the way. This bone can, when it grows in a specific way, impede your ability to hear.
- Meniere’s Disease: When somebody is coping with the chronic condition called Menier’s disease, they frequently experience vertigo and hearing loss. It’s not unusual with Menier’s disease to lose hearing in one ear before the other. Menier’s disease frequently is accompanied by single sided hearing loss and ringing.
- Earwax: Yup, occasionally your earwax can become so packed in there that it cuts off your hearing. It has a similar effect to wearing earplugs. If you’re experiencing earwax clogging your ear, never try to clean it out with a cotton swab. Cotton swabs can just create a worse and more entrenched issue.
- Acoustic Neuroma: An acoustic neuroma is a benign tumor that forms on the nerves of the inner ear and might sound a bit more intimidating than it normally is. While it isn’t cancerous, necessarily, an acoustic neuroma is still a serious (and possibly life-threatening) condition that you should consult your provider about.
- Other infections: One of your body’s most prevailing responses to an infection is to swell up. It’s just how your body responds. This response isn’t always localized, so any infection that produces inflammation can result in the loss of hearing in one ear.
- Ear infections: Ear infections can trigger swelling. And this swelling can obstruct your ear canal, making it extremely hard for you to hear.
- Ruptured eardrum: Usually, a ruptured eardrum is hard to miss. It can be related to head trauma, loud noises, or foreign objects in the ear (among other things). When the thin membrane separating your ear canal and your middle ear has a hole in it, this kind of injury happens. The result can be really painful, and typically causes tinnitus or hearing loss in that ear.
So… What can I do about my single-sided hearing loss?
Treatment options for single-sided hearing loss will vary based upon the root cause. In the case of specific obstructions (like bone or tissue growths), surgery might be the ideal option. A ruptured eardrum or similar problems will usually heal naturally. And still others, including an earwax based blockage, can be removed by simple instruments.
Your single-sided hearing loss, in some circumstances, might be permanent. We will help, in these situations, by prescribing one of two potential hearing aid options:
- CROS Hearing Aid: This type of specially made hearing aid is specifically made to address single-sided hearing impairment. These hearing aids are able to identify sounds from your impacted ear and transfer them to your brain via your good ear. It’s quite effective not to mention complex and very cool.
- Bone-Conduction Hearing Aids: To help you compensate for being able to hear from only one ear, these hearing aids utilize your bones to move the sound waves to your brain, bypassing most of the ear altogether.
It all begins with your hearing specialist
If you can’t hear out of both of your ears, there’s probably a reason. It isn’t something that should be disregarded. It’s important, both for your well-being and for the health of your hearing, to get to the bottom of those causes. So schedule an appointment with us today, so you can begin hearing out of both ears again!
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230949/
https://www.hear-it.org/single-sided-deafness