What are the symptoms of nerve damage in the ear?

Hearing loss can happen because of many reasons. One of them is nerve damage or Auditory neuropathy. This is caused because of disruption of the nerve impulses traveling from the inner ear to the brain. Auditory neuropathy is also referred to as neural or nerve deafness sometimes. One or both ears may get affected and there could be a hearing loss from mild to severe level.

Sometimes, people can hear after the nerve damage, but they will find difficulty in understanding spoken words, particularly when there is a lot of noise around. Hearing and understanding speech can be improved by the use of hearing aids or cochlear implants.

The best way of getting the best hearing aid is to visit an expert hearing clinic in Orange.

What are the symptoms for nerve damage?

Symptoms of nerve damage can vary sometimes. For example, some people experience both improvements and deteriorations in hearing.

The hearing capacity of a person diagnosed with nerve damage may improve, deteriorate, or remain unchanged. There is no rationality behind that and also there is no way to predict the outcome.

The symptoms will vary from one person to the next, and they can fluctuate as well. Still, some common symptoms are:

• Hearing loss ranging from mild to severe

• Fading in and out of sounds

• Difficulty understanding spoken words (speech perception)

• Hearing is normal but speech perception becomes poor

• Affected speech perception in noisy surroundings

Many of the symptoms can also be caused by more common types of hearing loss. Therefore, it is mandatory to undergo hearing test in Orange to know the exact condition.

What causes nerve damage?

Sometimes, the structures within the ear may work perfectly partially, but the information from the ear will reach the brain in a distorted order. The cause of auditory neuropathy isn’t known, but experts suspect that several factors may be responsible for it. Such as:

• Damage to the hair cells in the inner ear

• Damaged connections between the hair cells and the cochlear nerve

• Damage to the cochlear nerve

• Damage to the eighth cranial nerve (the combination of the cochlear and vestibular nerves)

• Damage in auditory pathways in the brain stem

According to the hearing experts, it is always better to carry out required hearing test Hurstville, as soon as the slightest symptoms appear. Thus, further damage can be avoided.

What are the risk factors of nerve damage?

Well, there is always a possibility of getting nerve damage to anyone, but there are some factors that increase the risk.

• Problems with birth. For example, reduced oxygen supply to the fetus.

• Effects of certain medications. Some medications that are used to treat obstetric complications may also have an impact on the nerve.

• Premature birth, jaundice, or low birth weight,

• Rarely, the nerve damage can be associated with other neurological disorders such as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disorder and Friedrich’s ataxia.

• Genetic connection. It runs in the family sometimes.

Diagnosis of auditory neuropathy

To diagnose nerve damage, experts carry out tests like Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR), Otoacoustic Emissions (OAE), Hearing Test, etc.