We need a sense for every area of everyday life. We need our taste buds to taste our food and we need our sight to be able to see where we are going. When you start to lose your hearing, it can be difficult to manage because the ears are a lot more complicated than any of us realize. It’s not just losing your hearing that you would need to get hearing help for though, because balance disorders usually accompanied hearing loss.
If you haven’t ever had a hearing test before, you may want to have a conversation with an audiologist to find out why you may be dealing with balance issues right now. Even if you’re not necessarily dealing with hearing loss, if your balance is starting to feel a bit strange, an audiologist can still help.
Balance Disorders and How Does it Affect Hearing Loss
The organs of the inner ear do so much more than allow us to experience the world around us. These organs also play a very crucial role in helping us to orient ourselves – in maintaining a special awareness and ensuring that we remain balanced. When those organs start to fail, we don’t just deal with losing a sense of hearing.
There are plenty of conditions and diseases that are accompanied by a loss of balance or spatial orientation. Anything from Otosclerosis to noise-related hearing damage can cause balance issues. Meniere’s disease and autoimmune inner ear diseases are also a factor.
It is important to note that if you are experiencing any kind of balance issues or vertigo, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to lose your hearing. There are plenty of disorders out there that specifically impact balance, and these include the following:
- Positional vertigo. This is also known as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Is categorized by instances of dizziness, and it can be the result of a head injury or due to aging. Even moving your head too quickly can cause this and it’s mostly harmless.
- Labyrinthitis. If you have an infection in the middle ear, the inflammation brings about vestibular neuronitis. This is where everything seems to shift but there is no hearing loss involved.
Potential Causes
Of course, these are the only two issues but the shortlist should tell you that the potential causes of disordered balance are incredibly diverse. There are the conditions that accompany hearing impairment, and as with any other issue involving balance, the best thing to do is to get a diagnosis from a qualified audiologist. Treating a balance problem is also best spoken to with your audiologist because they will be able to tell you if there is any hearing loss involved.
If you are currently experiencing any dizziness or vertigo, any discomfort in or around your ears or you are worried that you’re hearing is slowly starting to fade, making an appointment as soon as possible is the best recommendation. Plenty of conditions that we have listed here – hearing conditions in general as well – will have a much better prognosis when caught earlier on. We only get one set of ears and we need to be able to look after them.
If your dizziness or issues with your balance are caused by untreated hearing loss, you don’t have to panic. Audiologists will use a wide range of diagnostic treatment options to give you a higher quality of life. Hearing aids, for example, are the ultimate treatment option for hearing loss. There may have been a stigma about hearing aids in the past but with the modern options that you have today you may find that you find hearing aids comfortable and easy to use.
The process of treatment always requires diagnosis, so speak to an audiologist today and get a hearing evaluation and a hearing aid consultation. You also need to speak to them about any balance issues that you are experiencing. You need to know whether they are linked to your hearing or is there something else going on.
Seeking out help isn’t always the easiest thing to do, especially if you’re nervous about having your ears looked into in the first place. If your friends and family are noticing differences about you and your ability to hear them talk, then speaking out and getting some help is the best thing that you can do. When you call our experts, you will find a friendly voice at the end of the phone getting you ready for your appointment to have your hearing checked out. Don’t wait around. Call Hear Here Audiology at 727-289-1212 today.
