Causes of Hearing Loss by Melissa K. Rodriguez

[ Music ] >> Some of the causes of hearing loss are aging, genetics, ototoxicity and noise exposure. Let me explain those a little bit for you. So what we call presbycusis is just simply the body aging, the ears, the cochlea, they age and they get a little bit weaker. Just like our muscles get weaker and our skin starts dropping a little and our hair turns gray, as we age, things happen. So that is only one of many causes of hearing loss. The next one is genetics. There is genetic marker and it usually travels on the female side so if your mother or aunt or grandmother have hearing loss, you would definitely be more prone to have it genetically. And then genetic hearing loss can also be complicated with the aging factor. As far as there -- so, so now we having aging, genetics, noise induced, this is probably the biggest cause of hearing loss today. Imagine in our world just 100 years ago, there were no air conditioners and heaters and airplanes and cars and loud boomboxes and iPods and, you know, think of your life today. At all times, we have on a radio or a TV or are in the car and there's just noise and noise and noise. We're just constantly inundating our ears with noise and we're having them work. So our ears a little bit overworked in today's society. So even if you're not in any one particular loud environment, just the culmination of sound, over time, can create hearing loss. Especially those who are in loud environments, you may work or have worked in a manufacturing facility. If you were -- you served our country in our, in our Armed Forces and you were around a lot of artillery, maybe you like to race -- drive racecars, maybe you just like to listen to your music loud. All of those things take their toll on the ear. Most hearing loss is not any one of these issues, it's a combination. Another cause of hearing loss is what we call ototoxicity, that is any sort of medications we take in our body that are not natural. They all have different effects so when you get your prescription at the doctor's and you have that side effect sheet, pay attention to that. If it says you may experience hearing loss, that's what we could consider an ototoxic drug. There are some medications that there would be an alternate choice so if you look on it and you see that it might cause hearing loss and you're already having some, you know, just let your doctor know, would there be another medicine I could take that wouldn't be ototoxic for me. So with ototoxicity, genetics, all the noise around us, and the fact that we're all growing older, we're all at risk for hearing loss. So I'm going to say it one more time, it's so important to have your hearing tested annually to make sure you know what you're hearing and what you might be missing. [ Background noise ]