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The canals in our ears are lined with hair follicles as well as glands that produce an oily wax called cerumen, or ear wax. This wax coats the inner surface of the ear canal and protects it by attracting and gathering foreign debris like dirt and dust, bacteria, and various microbes. A further purpose of ear wax is to protect the delicate skin of the ear canal if it is exposed to water; Thus, the creation of ear wax is both normal and healthy.Ordinarily, ear wax makes its way to the opening of the ear, where it comes out by itself can be removed when we rinse out our ears. But, the glands in certain people’s ears produce more wax than usual. As a result, the wax accumulates and may harden, blocking the ear canal and preventing sound waves from getting to your inner ear. For that reason, the buildup of excess ear wax is, for people of every age, one of the most common causes of hearing difficulties.Signs of ear wax blockage normally include earaches, a sense that the ear is closed up, a persistent ringing noise (tinnitus), and partial loss of hearing, which seems to get gradually worse. This is a form of conductive (rather than sensorineural) hearing loss, where the sound waves are blocked from getting to the eardrum. Hearing loss brought on by excess ear wax, happily, can be easily diagnosed and treated.If the symptoms listed above sound familiar to you, see us in our clinic where any of our team members can do pain-free assessments to see whether you do in fact have an excess accumulation of ear wax. If it is, an excessive build-up of ear wax is readily treated, either at home or at the office.If an audiologist says that you have excessive ear wax that is blocking your ear canal, you can take steps to remove it by yourself at home. One of the things not to attempt, however, is to use a Q-tip or cotton swab, which tends to just compact the ear wax, not get rid of it. A much better home treatment is to add drops of mineral oil, glycerin, baby oil, or commercial ear drops to each ear, let them loosen the wax build-up, and then wash it out using water at body temperature. (Hot or cold water can cause feelings of vertigo or dizziness.) Drug stores offer small bulb-like syringes which you can use to flush the ear after the wax has been loosened, assisting the process. Do not try to use a WaterPik or other jet irrigator created for the teeth because the force of the spray could harm the eardrum, and do not try any form of irrigation at home if you know that your eardrum has been punctured.If this doesn’t seem to work to clear up the accumulation of ear wax, come visit us.

If you have ever been at a concert and thought “This music is simply too loud,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve gotten too old for this sort of music. It might imply that your body is trying warn you – that you are in a place that could impair your ability to hear. If, after you’ve left the event, and for the subsequent few days you have had a ringing in your ears (tinnitus) or had trouble hearing as well as usual, you may have experienced NIHL – noise induced hearing loss.Noise induced hearing loss can happen even after one exposure to very loud concert music, because the high decibel noises injure very small hair cells in the inner ear that receive auditory signals and translate them into sounds. Luckily for the majority, the NIHL they suffer after a single exposure to loud concert music is not permanent, and goes away after a day or so. However in the event that you continue to expose yourself to very loud noise or music, it can cause tinnitus that does not go away, or a long-term loss of hearing.How much damage very loud noise does to one’s hearing is dependant upon two things – exactly how loud the noise is, and exactly how long you are in contact with it. Noise levels are measured on the decibel scale, which is logarithmic and thus not very intuitive; a rise of 10 decibels on the scale means that the sound at the higher rating is twice as loud. So the sound of noisy urban traffic (85 decibels) is not just a little louder than the sound of normal speech (65 decibels), it’s 4 times louder. The decibel rating at typical rock concerts is 115, meaning that these noise levels are 10 times louder than normal speech. Together with how loud the noise is, the second factor that impacts how much damage is done is how long you are exposed to it, thepermissible exposure time. Loss of hearing can occur from coming in contact with sound at 85 decibels after only 8 hours. At 115 decibels, the level of rock concerts, the permissible exposure time before you risk hearing loss is under 1 minute. Therefore concerts are high risk, because the noise levels at some of them have been measured at greater than 140 decibels.It has been predicted that as many as fifty million people will suffer hearing loss as a result of exposure to very loud music – either at live shows or over headphones by 2050. Live concert promoters, now that they have been made aware of this, have started to offer fans low-cost ear plugs to wear during their shows.One famous UK rock band actually collaborated with an earplug vendor to offer them totally free to people attending its concerts. Notices are beginning to appear at concert venues saying, “Earplugs are sexy!” In all honesty, wearing earplugs at a concert may not really be all that sexy, but if they safeguard your ability to hear and enjoy future concerts it might be worthwhile.Any of our hearing specialists right here would be happy to provide you with information regarding earplugs. If a loud rock and roll concert is in your future, we strongly suggest that you think about wearing a good pair.

Are you looking for some facts and data to finally get a loved one to have a hearing test or be fitted for a hearing aid? Chatting about some of the data related to the prevalence, causes and effects of hearing problems may finally get them to make that initial appointment. The following are some facts and statistics to help you make your case:

• More men than women experience hearing loss.
• Roughly 13% of the population over age 65 will experience tinnitus – ringing in the ears.
• The number of Americans with hearing loss has doubled in the last 30 years.
• Nearly one of of every 5 individuals in the US have some form of hearing loss – that is 36 million people!
• Ten million people have irreversible loss of hearing because of noise, and 30 million more people are exposed to harmful levels of noise every day.
• Many more people could benefit from a hearing aid than in fact wear one. Some estimates claim there are 4 additional people who could benefit, for every 1 actually using a hearing aid.
• One million Americans have tinnitus that is so serious it gets in the way of daily life.
• Hearing loss categorization studies report that 5% of cases are severe, 30% moderate and 65% are classified as mild.
• Roughly 13,000 adults and 10,000 children in the United States have cochlear implants.
• Approximately 26 million Americans aged between 20 and 69 suffer from high frequency hearing loss caused by recurring exposure to loud noise either on the job or during leisure activities.
• Those with hearing loss delay an average of 10 years before doing anything about it.

Does that describe you or someone you love?

Hearing loss is grouped in a variety of different ways. The specific section of the auditory system affected determines the categorization. In this short article we provide an introduction to five categories – sensorineural, conductive, functional, central and mixed. The starting point in creating a therapy plan is to accurately diagnose the type of hearing impairment.Conductive hearing loss – In situations where sound waves aren’t adequately conducted to the inner ear through the parts of the outer and middle ear, conductive hearing loss occurs. Conductive hearing loss is very common and can be caused by a buildup of ear wax, a buildup of fluid in the eustacian tube, which prevents the eardrum from moving properly, a middle ear infection, a perforated eardrum, disease of the tiny bones of the middle ear and other obstructions in the ear canal.Most instances of this type of hearing loss are reversible, presuming there is no permanent damage to the regions of the middle ear, and with proper treatment the problem usually resolves fairly quickly. In some cases surgery can help to correct the condition or a hearing aid may be recommended.Sensorineural hearing loss – This type of hearing loss accounts for over 90% of the instances in which a hearing aid is worn. Sensorineural hearing loss is the result of damage in the inner ear or damage to the acoustic nerve, which blocks sound signals from reaching the brain. Also referred to as nerve deafness or retrocochlear hearing loss, the impairment is more often than not permanent, though breakthroughs in technology have enabled some formerly untreatable cases to see some improvement.The most frequent factors that cause sensorineural hearing loss are aging, extended exposure to noise, complications with blood circulation to the interior of the ear, fluid disturbance in the inner ear, medicines that cause injury to the ear, some diseases, genetics and problems with the auditory nerve.Hearing aids are sufficient for the majority of people that have this kind of hearing loss, but in more serious cases, a cochlear implant can help restore hearing to those individuals for whom a conventional hearing aid is not enough.Central hearing loss – This condition occurs when a problem in the CNS (central nervous system) prevents sound signals from being processed and interpreted by the brain. Affected individuals can ostensibly hear just fine, but cannot understand or interpret what is being said. Many cases involve a problem with the individual’s ability to properly filter competing sounds. For example, the majority of us can hold a conversation with traffic noise in the background, but individuals with this problem have a really hard time with this.Functional hearing loss – A rare occurrence, this type of hearing loss is not physical. Functional hearing loss is due to psychological or emotional problem in which the person’s physical hearing is normal, however they do not seem to be able to hear.Mixed hearing loss – As suggested by the term, mixed hearing loss is a combination of multiple types of hearing loss, in this case the combination of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss. Though there are a couple of other types of hearing loss, the combination of these two is most frequent.

Lost In the Crowd

How I Discovered My Child had APD

When Ryan was about 9 months of age I started noticing that my baby boy was not so happy in certain situations. When I took him to the gym daycare he would cry. Sometimes he would sit in the corner, and every once in a while, rock back and forth against the wall. At birthday parties he seemed to be in his own world. There were never any red flags about Ryan’s behavior at his doctor visits in the quiet examination room when I would take him and my daughter to their well exams. At home he was just like other toddlers. However, he was a different child in a crowd.

By the time my child went into preschool, his teachers told us that there definitely was something wrong with him. He couldn’t play appropriately with all of the other kids. If there was more than one kid in the room, he was lost. He was preoccupied with sounds that no one else would pay any attention to such as tapping of pencils or lights bussing above him. He would say things that were off topic and not be able to understand the rules to games.He went through several preschools until the school district diagnosed him with developmental delays in the social/emotional and behavioral areas. After that, he was placed in the developmental preschool. Still, he could not sit in his seat for very long or follow oral directions and still had a hard time making friends.The next school year did not go so well either, to say the least. By now, the school psychologist was trying to get my son to see a psychiatrist, she said over the phone something about there being medications for these issues. I told her “No way! I will never medicate my son!” She also told me that they wanted to change his label from Developmentally Delayed to Emotionally Disabled. I just knew that it had something to do with the sounds that he heard, or crowded places. I knew that my son did not have any type of mental illness.Meanwhile, he was a good sight reader, for a five year old, and he was good at memorizing things and was also a wizard on the computer at home. However, Ryan was still not making many friends. He got in a few fights. He was not able to join in on the conversations in class, the lunch room, or the playground. He also would say a few bad words here and there. I guess he felt that at least the other kids would laugh or smile when he would say or do silly things. He mentioned to me that the other kids thought he was funny. Any where there were more than a few people, he would act lost. During “one on one,” at home or in the principal’s office, he would behave like any other kid. The only explanation he would give me for his behavior was that he could not listen. “What was I supposed to do with that information,” I thought.After months of phone calls home from the principal’s office regarding my sons’ weird behavior and pressure to get my son evaluated for his mental issues I ended up calling theArizonaCenterfor Disability Law and told them that I felt like I was being pressured by the school system to medicate my kid. They said that was not legal and sent me a book. I also forgot to mention that Able Child, my son’s Naturopath and CCHR was also helping me through this process; telling me that it sounds like my son has a learning disability and not a mental problem.I received the book fromArizonaCenterfor Disability Law. I went through the list of disorders and researched every single one on line. When I got to Central Auditory Processing Disorder I looked it up on the internet just like the other disabilities. OMG!! This is it!!! I showed my husband and he said calmly, “This is what wrong with our son.”From there, I called many audiologists in the area. I found out that only a couple places diagnose this problem, however, not until the child turns 7. I knew that if there was a will, there was a way. After a few days an audiologist office referred me to Arizona Balance andHearingCenter. They have the technology there to even diagnose babies. I made an appointment for the next week. After 3 hours of testing the staff came to get me and informed me that “Ryan meets the criteria set forth by the American Speech –Language-Hearing Association for an Auditory Processing Disorder.” They gave me a list of recommendations, from an FM system in the class room to working with an audiologist. They referred me to Susan Van Wie. That is where the healing began.Ryan was diagnosed a few days before summer vacation. We saw Susan for one hour of therapy every Sunday that summer. Ryan did about 45 minutes of therapy work about five days a week, mostly with auditory computer programs made for children with auditory processing issues. As a team we made alleviating his APD our mission.Little by little, I noticed my son was not turning up the television so loud. He was able to play more with his sister’s friends. He was not so “off topic” and he was saying “what,” and “huh” a lot less. He was turning into a happier kid and we were slowly becoming a happier family.We ended up changing elementary schools for my son so he could have a fresh start. Susan would meet me at the IEP meetings at his school in order to make sure the staff was educated about APD and for support on my behalf. She informed the school what APD was, how to elevate it, and helped the school get an FM speaker in Ryan’s class in order for him to hear speech in noise. An FM system is where the teacher speaks into a small microphone that is attached to her shirt, or around her neck, and her voice can be heard without the background noise of other kids. His classroom has one big speaker so it is beneficial to every child in his class.We kept seeing Susan for the next 7 months. He diligently did his daily auditory lessons that Susan prepared for us. By the end of that school year, my son made Student of the Month! I have to also mention that his new school has done a great job helping Ryan catch up on his social skills and understanding and working with his condition. Now Ryan could correctly hear what his friends and his teacher are saying to him. Susan was wonderful. Ryan just loved her. She is kind and patient and always treated Ryan and I with respect. Ryan, Susan and I were a team. In ten months my son went from a confused outcast to a well adjusted Student of the Month.It has been about 18 months since Ryan was diagnosed with APD. He can now hear most speech in noise and has tested well in most of the age appropriate categories. He will need a re-evaluation every year to make sure he is still doing well. Our days are not always perfect. He still needs directions repeated here and there at school and sometimes gets in trouble for not keeping his hands to himself while in line. Although, he still needs a FM System in his class, for now, to help him stay focused. He is a pretty good student who now just has age appropriate issues at school and at home.I feel so blessed to have been able to help my son and I hope his story will help other children who are misdiagnosed. I know that Auditory Processing Disorder will become recognized more by the schools and pediatricians. I was grateful that I stumbled across it under the learning disorders in the book sent to me. I cringe to think what could have become of my boy’s self esteem if he kept suffering with the confusion of his brain not processing sounds and words correctly. Ryan is proof that this disorder can be overcome with the right intervention and a lot of hard work.--Ryan’s Mom

As youngsters, most of us were most likely advised to eat our carrots for better vision. Most likely you did not hear any comparable suggestions about which foods were beneficial to your ears and hearing. Now we can teach our little ones what things to eat for healthy hearing and ears, and also sensible for us to adhere to our own recommendations! Noise, age and infections are among the many reasons for hearing impairment. Specific nutrients in the foods mentioned in this article may help prevent or impede the progression of some common reasons for hearing loss. Musicians, machinery workers, and other professionals in contact with loud noises, are at a greater risk for ear damage. Those with a profession or pastime subjecting them to intense noise, can help take care of their hearing with potatoes, artichokes, bananas, or any other foods abundant in the mineral magnesium. Despite the fact that the precise mechanism is not known, human and animal studies have shown that magnesium helps defend against noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).Surprisingly, research indicates that fish such as salmon and trout that possesses vitamin D and omega 3 fats, may reduce the incidence of age-related hearing problems. Other smart omega 3 fats and vitamin D choices are the anchovies on your pizza and the tuna fish probably sitting in your cupboard. Eaten two times per week, any of these may help you hear better in your later years.Contact with high decibel noise can stimulate the generation of harmful free radicals contributing to the demise of delicate inner ear hair cells, according to The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). Folic acid and antioxidants can minimize tissue damage from free radicals in the inner ear. Particular foods are particularly rich in folic acid and antioxidants – among them asparagus, nuts, eggs and spinach.You know what? Dark chocolate is also ideal for your hearing health! Dark chocolate contains zinc, and zinc deficiencies have been related to age-related hearing loss. If you don’t like dark chocolate, grab some oysters on the half shell; any foods which contain zinc will work!Now we can help our children reduce future hearing damage with a couple of simple foods we most likely have in our kitchen. Simply add some of these suggestions to the grocery list next to carrots for good eye sight.

Blockage of the outer ear canal due to an accumulation of ear wax is one of the most prevalent causes of temporary hearing loss. If you are rather confident that ear wax is the source of your short-term hearing loss, you almost certainly want to clean your ears. Although this is a normal desire, it is crucial to understand how to clean your ears safely, without causing hearing or ear canal damage.To stress health and safety when cleaning your ears, let’s start with what not to do. Avoid using cotton swabs or any other foreign objects that you insert into your ears, as they may cause the ear wax to become even more compacted. Never, use any gadget that sprays water under pressure. The pressurized water stream can perforate your eardrum. Lastly, if you know that you have a ruptured eardrum, leave cleaning your ears to a hearing specialist. The same holds true if you suspect you have an ear infection. Signs and symptoms of ear infections include fever, vomiting or diarrhea, ear pain and fluid draining from the ears.Cleaning your ears properly in your own home can be done with syringe or bulb and a rinse solution from the local pharmacy. You can purchase a carbamide peroxide solution at the local drugstore, or make your own using equal parts of glycerin, mineral oil and 3 to 4 percent.To use the solution, carefully squeeze the solution into the ear using the bulb or syringe. It generally works best to lay down on your side with a towel available to catch drips. Try to avoid touching the ear with the bulb if you can. Allow the carbamide peroxide solution to linger in your ear for a couple of minutes and then repeat for the other side.The solution will loosen and soften the built up wax so that it can be rinsed out. Use lukewarm water to wash each ear and towel dry. Again, do not insert anything into the ear while drying. If the blockage continues, repeat this process of cleaning your ears twice a day for 2 or 3 days. If the problem continues any longer, call your an audiologist or hearing specialist.

There are several good reasons why Central Auditory Processing Disorder, or CAPD, is difficult to diagnose properly. Conventional hearing tests do not always catch CAPD because the condition originates in the brain, not the ears. Youngsters with CAPD can hear spoken phrases and sounds, especially speech, but their brains improperly process the signals sent by the ears. One more reason it is hard to diagnose is because children often develop advanced coping mechanisms. These children may be pros at using expressions or reading lips to conceal their condition.These characteristics of Central Auditory Processing Disorder also make treatment of the condition challenging, because any individual trying to enhance the child’s speech comprehension must continuously remain cognizant of them and develop approaches to work around them. Unfortunately there is no recognized cure or treatment for CAPD that works well across all kids. Each treatment plan is highly personalized and adjusted based on the patients’ capabilities and limitations. With that said, there are a number of treatment protocols which are greatly strengthening childrens’ learning prognosis.Central Auditory Processing Disorder therapy falls into three primary categories – environmental change, direct treatment and compensatory strategies.

• Compensatory Strategies – The group of methods including attention, memory, problem-solving and language improvement skills is called compensatory strategies. These particular therapies give students better coping skills and techniques that enable them to do well at learning, and also make them learn to take responsibility for their own learning success. Lessons intended to improve these types of skills might contain “active listening” drills or solving word problems.
• Direct Treatment – Computer-aided learning and one-on-one therapy sessions fall under the category of direct treatment. These strategies make use of the brain’s inherent plasticity and ability to establish new neurological pathways and abilities. These treatment options routinely include, in the classroom, at home or in therapy sessions, the use of Hasbro’s “Simon” game or the “Fast ForWord” educational software from Scientific Education to help pupils to improve the sequencing, discrimination, and processing of acoustic inputs. Some direct CAPD therapy uses dichotic training which trains the brain on hearing multiple sounds in different ears and analyzing the blended inputs correctly. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s “Earobics” program, is also employed by some professionals to strengthen phonological awareness.
• Environmental Change – In the category of environmental change one technique is lowering the level of ambient noise via soundproofing and putting in acoustic tiles, curtains or wall hangings because surrounding noise is proven to make it harder for an individual with CAPD to comprehend speech. In certain school rooms, the teachers don a microphone and the CAPD pupils wear small receivers, so that the teacher’s voice is amplified and clarified, making it distinct from other sounds or voices. Some benefits are from better lighting, because lips and expressions are easier to read on fully lit faces than on dimly-lit faces.

So treatments are available if your child is diagnosed with CAPD, but bear in mind that the first step is identifying the condition, and doing this early. If there is a way we can assist with this, please phone or email us. Allow us to add our years of hearing expertise and connections with local Central Auditory Processing Disorder specialists to helping your child learn properly.

It is hard to give a single response to the question “What kind of battery do I buy for my hearing aid?” because hearing aid types and styles vary widely, and so do the batteries used to operate them. If you already have a hearing aid, check the device’s manual or the hearing care professionals who sold it to you to verify the right battery type and size. If you’re still looking for a hearing aid and trying to choose which style is best for you, you might wish to do some comparison shopping to assist you in your selection. The explanation for this is that hearing aid batteries differ in price and in battery lifespan, and so an estimate of how many of them you’ll need over time can influence your choice of which hearing aid to get.Fortunately, hearing aid battery packaging uses a standardized color coding scheme. The sizes are all standard across manufacturers, so the color on the package is a dependable indication of the battery size and type.The 4 most common ones are:Size 10 / Yellow – Size 10 hearing aid batteries are identified with a yellow color code, and are currently the most extensively used, being used in a large number of In-The-Canal (ITC) and Completely-In-Canal (CIC) styles; due to their smaller size, they have an approximated battery lifespan of about 80 hours.Size 13 / Orange – Size 13 batteries are frequently used in In-the-Ear (ITE) and Behind-the-Ear (BTE) hearing aids, and have an average battery lifespan of 240 hours.Size 675 / Blue – Size 675 is always coded blue, and is typically found in Behind-The-Ear (BTE) hearing aids and in selected cochlear implants; the 675 batteries are fairly large and have the benefit of a long charge, lasting as much as 300 hours.Size 312 / Brown – Brown corresponds to Size 312 batteries. Size 312 batteries are on the smaller end of the spectrum and typically maintain a charge for about 175 hours. These batteries are commonly found in In-The-Ear (ITE) and In-The-Canal (ITC) hearing aids.These 4 battery types cover most hearing aids, however there are a few exceptions that necessitate alternative batteries. Most in-store providers of hearing aid batteries advertise and stock the more common battery types above, however if you inquire about a specific type, they can usually get it for you.Before stocking up on batteries, remember to read the manual that came with your device to make sure it doesn’t have rechargeable batteries; if it does, you need disposable ones only as back-up. To keep your batteries fresh and fully charged after you purchase them, always store them inside at room temperature and in their original, unopened packages.