Let’s pretend you go to a rock show. You’re awesome, so you spend the entire night in the front row. It isn’t exactly hearing-healthy, but it’s fun, and the next day, you wake up with both ears ringing. (That’s not as fun.)
But what if you wake up and can only hear out of one ear? The rock concert is most likely not to blame in that situation. Something else must be happening. And when you develop hearing loss in one ear only… you may feel a bit alarmed!
Also, your general hearing may not be working right. Your brain is accustomed to sorting out signals from two ears. So it can be disorienting to get signals from one ear only.
Why hearing loss in one ear causes problems
Generally speaking, your ears work together. Your two outward facing ears help you hear more accurately, much like how your two forward facing eyes help with depth perception. So the loss of hearing in one ear can wreak havoc. Amongst the most prominent effects are the following:
- Distinguishing the direction of sound can become a great challenge: You hear someone attempting to get your attention, but looking around, you can’t find where they are. It’s exceedingly hard to triangulate the direction of sound with only one ear functioning.
- It’s challenging to hear in noisy locations: Loud places such as event venues or noisy restaurants can become overwhelming with only one ear functioning. That’s because your ears can’t make heads or tails of where any of that sound is coming from.
- You can’t be sure how loud anything is: You need both ears to triangulate location, but you also need both to determine volume. Think about it this way: You won’t be sure if a sound is far away or just quiet if you don’t know where the sound was originating from.
- You wear your brain out: When you lose hearing in one ear, your brain can become overly tired, extra fast. That’s because it’s trying desperately to make up for the loss of hearing from one of your ears. This is especially true when hearing loss in one ear suddenly occurs. basic daily activities, as a result, will become more taxing.
So how does hearing loss in one ear happen?
“Single sided Hearing Loss” or “unilateral hearing loss” are technical terms for when hearing is impaired on one side. While the more ordinary type of hearing loss (in both ears) is usually the result of noise-related damage, single-sided hearing loss isn’t. This means that it’s time to consider other possible causes.
Some of the most prevalent causes include the following:
- Ruptured eardrum: Typical, a ruptured eardrum is hard to miss. It can be due to head trauma, loud noises, or foreign objects in the ear (amongst other things). When the thin membrane dividing your ear canal and your middle ear has a hole in it, this kind of injury happens. The outcome can be really painful, and usually leads to tinnitus or hearing loss in that ear.
- Ear infections: Ear infections can cause swelling. And this inflammation can obstruct your ear canal, making it difficult for you to hear.
- Earwax: Yes your hearing can be blocked by excessive earwax packed in your ear canal. It’s like wearing an earplug. If you’re experiencing earwax plugging your ear, never try to clear it out with a cotton swab. Cotton swabs can push the earwax even further up against the eardrum.
- Meniere’s Disease: Meniere’s Disease is a degenerative hearing condition that can lead to vertigo and hearing loss. Often, the disease advances asymmetrically: one ear might be impacted before the other. Menier’s disease frequently comes with single sided hearing loss and ringing.
- Acoustic Neuroma: While the name might sound pretty frightening, an acoustic neuroma is a benign tumor that grows on the nerves of the inner ear. While it’s not cancerous, necessarily, an acoustic neuroma is still a serious (and possibly life-threatening) condition that you should speak with your provider about.
- Other infections: One of your body’s most common reactions to an infection is to swell up. It’s just what your body does! This reaction isn’t always localized, so any infection that triggers inflammation can result in the loss of hearing in one ear.
- Irregular Bone Growth: It’s possible, in extremely rare cases, that hearing loss on one side can be the outcome of irregular bone growth. This bone can, when it grows in a particular way, hinder your ability to hear.
So how should I address hearing loss in one ear?
Treatments for single-sided hearing loss will differ depending on the underlying cause. In the case of certain obstructions (like bone or tissue growths), surgery may be the ideal option. Some issues, like a ruptured eardrum, will normally heal by themselves. And still others, like an earwax based blockage, can be cleared away by basic instruments.
In some circumstances, however, your single-sided hearing loss might be permanent. We will help, in these situations, by prescribing one of two possible hearing aid options:
- Bone-Conduction Hearing Aids: These hearing aids bypass much of the ear by using your bones to convey sound to the brain.
- CROS Hearing Aid: This type of specially created hearing aid is specifically made to address single-sided hearing impairment. With this hearing aid, sound is picked up at your bad ear and sent to your good ear where it’s decoded by your brain. It’s quite effective not to mention complicated and very cool.
It all starts with your hearing specialist
There’s probably a good reason why you can only hear out of one ear. In other words, this isn’t a symptom you should be ignoring. It’s important, both for your wellness and for the health of your hearing, to get to the bottom of those causes. So begin hearing out of both ears again by scheduling an appointment with us.
Call Today to Set Up an Appointment
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230949/
https://www.hear-it.org/single-sided-deafness
