Because you’re so cool, you were in the front row for the entire rock concert last night. It’s fun, though it’s not good for your ears which will be ringing when you wake up in the morning. (That’s not as enjoyable.)
But what happens if you can only hear out of one ear when you wake up? The rock concert is probably not to blame in that situation. Something else must be going on. And when you develop hearing loss in only one ear… you might feel a little alarmed!
What’s more, your hearing might also be a little wonky. Usually, your brain is processing information from both ears. So it can be disorienting to get signals from one ear only.
Why hearing loss in one ear causes issues
Your ears generally work together (no pun intended) with each other. Just like having two forward facing eyes helps your depth perception and visual sharpness, having two outward facing ears helps you hear more accurately. So when one of your ears stops working properly, havoc can result. Here are some of the most prevalent:
- Distinguishing the direction of sound can become a great challenge: Someone calls your name, but you have no clue where they are! When your hearing goes out in one ear, it’s really challenging for your brain to triangulate the origin of sounds.
- It’s hard to hear in loud locations: Loud settings such as 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 can’t be sure how loud anything is: In the same way as you need both ears to triangulate direction, you kind of need both ears to figure out how loud something is. Think about it like this: If you can’t figure out where a sound is coming from, it’s difficult to know whether that sound is quiet or just distant.
- You wear your brain out: Your brain will become more fatigued faster if you can only hear from one ear. That’s because it’s failing to get the complete sound range from just one ear so it’s working overly hard to compensate. This is particularly true when hearing loss in one ear happens suddenly. This can make a lot of tasks throughout your daily life more taxing.
So how does hearing loss in one ear occur?
“Single sided Hearing Loss” or “unilateral hearing loss” are scientific names for when hearing is muffled on one side. While the more ordinary type of hearing loss (in both ears) is typically the result of noise-related damage, single-sided hearing loss is not. This means that it’s time to consider other possible causes.
Here are some of the most prevalent causes:
- Acoustic Neuroma: While the name might sound rather intimidating, an acoustic neuroma is a benign tumor that grows on the nerves of the inner ear. You still need to take this condition seriously, even though it’s not cancerous, it can still be potentially life threatening.
- Abnormal Bone Growth: It’s feasible, in very rare cases, that hearing loss on one side can be the result of abnormal bone growth. And when it grows in a particular way, this bone can actually interfere with your hearing.
- Other infections: Swelling is one of your body’s most common responses to infection. It’s just what your body does! Swelling in reaction to an infection isn’t necessarily localized so hearing loss in one ear can result from any infection that would cause inflammation.
- Ruptured eardrum: Normally, 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 separating your ear canal and your middle ear gets a hole in it, this kind of injury occurs. The result can be quite painful, and usually leads to tinnitus or hearing loss in that ear.
- Ear infections: Infections of the ear can trigger swelling. And it will impossible to hear through a swollen, closed up ear canal.
- Earwax: Yes your hearing can be blocked by too much earwax packed in your ear canal. It has a similar effect to using earplugs. If you have earwax clogging your ear, never try to clean it out with a cotton swab. A cotton swab can just create a worse and more entrenched issue.
- Meniere’s Disease: Meniere’s Disease is a chronic hearing condition that can result in vertigo and hearing loss. In many cases, the disease advances asymmetrically: one ear might be impacted before the other. Menier’s disease frequently is accompanied by single sided hearing loss and ringing.
So how should I address hearing loss in one ear?
Treatments for single-sided hearing loss will vary depending on the underlying cause. Surgery could be the best choice for certain obstructions such as tissue or bone growth. A ruptured eardrum or similar issues will normally heal on their own. And still others, like an earwax based obstruction, can be removed by simple instruments.
Your single-sided hearing loss, in some circumstances, may be permanent. We will help, in these cases, by prescribing one of two potential hearing aid solutions:
- CROS Hearing Aid: This unique type of hearing aid is designed exclusively for people with single-sided hearing loss. With this hearing aid, sound is received at your bad ear and sent to your good ear where it’s detected by your brain. It’s very effective not to mention complex and very cool.
- Bone-Conduction Hearing Aids: These hearing aids bypass much of the ear by using your bones to transfer sound to the brain.
It all starts with your hearing specialist
If you aren’t hearing out of both of your ears, there’s probably a reason. It’s not something that should be dismissed. Getting to the bottom of it is essential for hearing and your general health. So start hearing out of both ears again by scheduling an appointment with us.
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230949/
https://www.hear-it.org/single-sided-deafness
