Hearing Center: Is It Possible to Damage Your Hearing in One Incident?

Hearing center specialists and assistants are already aware of the many natural causes and accidental influences that bring on or exacerbate a patient's auditory function loss. But there are times when patients are experiencing loss at any age or stage. At first, they don't pay much attention to the process of diminished hearing; that is, until they notice how they cannot perform their job, avoid hobbies, or participation in everyday conversation effectively. But they often times equate it with just having sensitive ears. These men and women often times don't know that there is a direct correlation between their ear function, brain/auditory processing and their behavior. Have you ever heard of sensory integration?

Hearing center specialists known as audiologists can assist in diagnosing patients they suspect of suffering from sensory integration disorder. This disorder is categorized as a neurological integration that consists of a misfiring between the ear and the brain's ability to processes auditory stimuli. This is commonly associated with sensitivity to many noises at once. A parent can notice that their child seems upset and withdrawn during loud noises or an adult may avoid such situations. On one hand, this manifests itself as sensitivity to sound, balance issues, impulses and poor speech or motor skills not cause diminished auditory function. So, how is it exactly that some people who have 'sensitive ears' can sustain long term hearing loss after just one event?

Actually, each time any man or woman is exposed to incredibly high decibal volumes for extended periods of time (in hours or days) they are incrementally damaging their auditory sensory nerves. These high decibal volumes come in the form of regular exposure to loud machinery, driving noises, loud music or even lawn equipment. They are incrementally damaging the sensitive hair sensors of the cochlea, which process the waves that enter the ear before the brain can interpret the sound.

A good public example is the mother of a Justin Bieber concert goer who is suing the singer for damaging her hearing, Stacey Wilson Betts. Frankly, there is a thing called noise induced hearing loss. It is difficult for the young persons who went to the concert with Betts and her daughter or anyone who hasn't experienced a teen concert in their lives to understand. It is possible for Ms. Betts to have sustained long term auditory damage after just one concert. Because if she already had a genetic predisposition and experienced frequent or long term exposure to any one of life's daily auditory threatening examples, all it takes is one more event to cause permanent damage (minimal to total).