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Ashton Kutcher’s recent battle with a rare form of autoimmune disease has left him with hearing problems, which can complicate red carpet events. “I can’t hear very well, I’m hard of hearing in one ear and can only hear in the other” he said. “I don’t know who’s screaming my name but I know there’s a lot of people screaming, ‘Reese! Ashton! This way ! Look over here!” And at some point, you’re like, God, this is really something. Look at the camera? Got it. Are we done? Great.
Kutcher previously explained that the illness left him bedridden. “I had this weird, super rare form of vasculitis that destroyed my vision, it destroyed my hearing, it destroyed my whole balance,” Kutcher, 45, says. “It took me about a year to put it all back together. You don’t really appreciate it until it’s gone. Until you say, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to see again , I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to hear again, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to walk again. I’m lucky to be alive.”
Vasculitis is an autoimmune disease in which inflammation of blood vessels causes them to narrow and restrict the supply of oxygenated blood, leading to pain and tissue damage, as well as eventual organ dysfunction. “[People with vasculitis] often have fever, weight loss, fatigue, rapid pulse, and diffuse pain that is difficult to identify,” according to the Johns Hopkins Vasculitis Center. “Vasculitis has been said to be a ‘painful disease’ because it is so often associated with pain of one type or another: pain from nerve infarction, pain from insufficient blood in the gastrointestinal tract, pain due to skin ulcers.”
Hearing loss can occur for many reasons – understanding the warning signs can be the key to effective treatment. Here are five signs you should know, according to experts.
Difficulty following speech (especially consonants) is one of the first signs of hearing loss.
“When you lose enough hair cells, it starts to affect your hearing,” says Sujana Chandrasekhar, MD, partner at ENT and Allergy Associates in New York and New Jersey. “In men, hearing loss often begins in their mid-50s. Women, whose hearing may benefit from some protection from female hormones, are usually affected by their early to mid-60s.”
Losing the ability to hear high-frequency sounds is a warning sign, according to Dr. Chandrasekhar. “When you can hear vowels but not consonants, it sounds like people aren’t speaking clearly, so it’s easy to blame them.” This includes talking on the phone. “Usually the sound goes through both ears, but when you’re talking on the phone it only goes through one, which makes it more difficult, especially if you’re holding the phone to the most hearing-impaired ear.”
Another sign is short-term memory problems.
“It’s hard to remember things you can’t hear clearly” said Angela Shoupprofessor in the department of otolaryngology and chief of the division of communication and vestibular disorders at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
“And when you have trouble understanding what someone is saying, it strains your short-term memory. Our minds group information together to make it easier to remember. But people who are hard of hearing miss a lot of sounds, so they have to remember everything. random chunks in their short-term memory until they can fill in the blanks to make sense of a sentence.”
Needing a high volume on the TV can be a sign of hearing loss. “Whether you’re watching TV, listening to music, or talking on the phone, you might think the noise level is perfectly normal until others tell you the volume is too high,” says Dr. Hilary Steele, Au.D. “Obviously, some people are likely to have more sensitive hearing, but when multiple people are telling you the same thing in various situations, chances are you’ll have trouble hearing. If your family, friends and co-workers have expressed that you talk too loudly and your music and TV habits are following, it might be time for a hearing test.”
If the TV is on and someone is trying to talk to you, or if you’re in a crowd and you’re having trouble following a conversation, this can be a warning sign of hearing loss. “One of the first signs that you have hearing loss is when you have trouble following a conversation in a crowd,” says Dr. Steele. “If you often have trouble telling who is talking to you in a noisy environment, you might be in the early stages of hearing loss.”
Tinnitus and hearing loss are linked, experts say. “In truth, tinnitus is not necessarily a symptom of hearing loss, but the two often go together, especially if the hearing loss is related to noise damage,” said Dr. Steele. “If you notice ringing in your ears, you’ll want to have it checked out by a hearing care professional. You should also take the opportunity to get a hearing test, just in case you have both conditions.”
“90% of people with tinnitus have hearing loss,” says audiology researcher Gayla Poling, Ph.D.. “Those little hair cells in our inner ear are really delicate structures. That’s what’s really damaged by noise exposure.”
Our hearing and balance are directly linked. So any unexplained clumsiness or lack of balance could be a sign of hearing loss. “Your hearing health is an important part of your overall health,” says Dr. Meryl Miller, Au.D., director of clinical audiology at the Ear, Nose and Throat Institute. “Balance is one of the many ways your hearing health affects your overall health. According to a Johns Hopkins study, people aged 40 to 69 who had mild hearing loss were three times more likely to report falling. over the past year. And that risk increased with poor hearing.”
“One of the primary goals of physiotherapy when treating anyone with a balance disorder is to directly stimulate the patient’s visual system, muscular system, and balance system located in their inner ear” , says José Crespo, PT. “These three systems provide simultaneous sources of information to your brain which then helps your body stay upright and in good control without feeling disoriented, dizzy or nauseous. The smallest of challenges to these three systems can result in strong equilibrium reactions if any of these systems are weak.”
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