Deafness: Let’s treat Disability

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Deafness has been a disability which is often hidden by people and they rarely seek help for it. The stigma of being called “Deaf” is a lot which makes people hide facts not only from Loved ones but they even Lie to the Doctors. This the next post of   How to Self-Assess Hearing Loss? In this post, we’ll discuss the types of hearing loss.

What are the types of deafness?

There are 3 types of Deafness:

• Conductive Deafness
• Sensory-Neural Deafness
• Mixed Deafness

Conductive deafness:

As the term itself indicated the Conductive deafness is due to breakage at some point of the conductive mechanism of the ear. It could be at many levels and is treated according to the related problem in the conductive system.

• Congenital Abnormality

It could be congenital where it’s either associated with an external deformity or internal absence of bones of the middle ear or could be a part of a syndrome.

• Acquired Abnormality

It could be due to Trauma, Infection, Obstruction of External Canal, Dysfunction of Eustachian Tube. Let’s take each problem separately with its treatment

Acquired External Canal Causes:

The canal if blocked may cause

• Ear fullness
• Earache
• Ear heaviness
• Hearing loss

What all can cause blockage?

• Wax
• Foreign Body
• Infections: Acute Otitis Externa, Malignant Otitis Externa
• Tumors: Benign or malignant

Wax:

It’s most commonly observed cause of ear blockage and hearing loss in many populations. The question that comes to our mind is

What is wax?

Wax is a combination of skin shedding, oils, sebum & dirt. Wax does not get impacted in the canal without a cause.

Why does it gets impacted in the ear canal?

The ear is a self-cleaning cavity and the wax debris automatically comes out on its own. In a few cases where the anatomical anomaly is present then it gets impacted.

• Narrow external auditory canal
• External obstruction like osteoma, exostosis, granulations, etc.
• Very dry wax
• Conditions like Seborrheic dermatitis, Allergic Dermatitis, etc.

At times people themselves push the wax inside while cleaning it with earbuds. Then it starts accumulating and gets impacted in the canal.

How to remove wax?

• Wax softeners
• Syringing
• With Probe
• Suctioning
• Under a microscope in few resistant cases.

Kindly restrain from removing wax at home if you feel it’s impacted let ENT specialist help you out in such situation.

We’ll be back with more on Hearing loss in our subsequent posts. Be Healthy & Be Happy.

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Disclaimer: I am taking my blog to the next level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa. This article is for reference purpose only, under no circumstances it should be used as a replacement of medical opinion by Professionals. Any decision regarding health and health care should be taken after professional advice only. Health care advice and information shared by the author is best to her knowledge. We disclaim all responsibilities for any inadvertent omission/ commission by the author or the website.