It’s true, hearing loss can sneak up on you. But there are times when hearing problems suddenly pounce you like a cat rather than sneaking up on you. It could happen like this: you get up, pull yourself out of bed, and perhaps you don’t notice until you get out of the shower but your hearing feels…off, or different Maybe muffled.
You just assume that you got some water in your ears, but as the day continues, and there’s no improvement, you begin to get a little worried.
At times like these, when you experience a sudden drastic difference in your hearing, you should get medical attention. That’s because sudden hearing loss can often be a symptom of a larger issue. It could be a simple matter of an obstruction in your ear. It could be just a bit of earwax.
But sudden hearing loss can also be a sign of diabetes.
Diabetes – What is it?
If you don’t instantly identify the connection between hearing loss and diabetes that would be understandable. Your pancreas seems a long way from your ears.
Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which your body has trouble processing sugars into energy. When your body doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t process the insulin it is making, this is the outcome. This is why insulin injections are the most prevalent type of diabetes treatments.
What Does Diabetes Have to do With Your Hearing?
Diabetes is a common, often degenerative (and complex), condition. With the assistance of your doctor, it has to be managed cautiously. But what does that have to do with your ears?
Believe it or not, a fairly common sign of type 2 diabetes is sudden hearing loss. Collateral damage to other parts of the body is common with diabetes which often has an affect on blood vessels and nerves. These precise changes have a powerful affect on the little hairs in your ears responsible for your hearing (called stereocilia). So you might suffer sudden hearing loss even before other, more traditional symptoms of diabetes appear (numb toes, for instance).
What Should I do?
If you’re in this scenario, and your hearing has suddenly begun acting up, you’ll definitely want to get looked over by a medical professional. Diabetes, for example, will often be completely symptomless at first, so you may not even realize you have it until you begin to observe some of these warning signs.
As is the case with most forms of hearing loss, the sooner you get treatment, the more options you’ll have. But you need to watch out for more than just diabetes. Here are a few other possible triggers of sudden hearing loss:
- Earwax buildup or other obstructions.
- Autoimmune disorders.
- Infections of varied types.
- Problems with blood circulation (often caused by other problems such as diabetes).
- Blood pressure problems.
- Growth of tissue in the ear.
It can be difficult to know what’s causing your sudden hearing loss or what you should do about it without a medical diagnosis.
Treatment Solutions For Sudden Hearing Loss
Regardless of which of these your sudden hearing loss is caused by, if you catch it soon enough, your hearing will normally return to normal with correct treatment. Once the obstruction is removed or, with diabetes, once blood circulation problems have been addressed, your hearing will very likely get back to normal if you dealt with it promptly.
But that really does rely on quick and efficient treatment. If they are not addressed in time, some conditions, like diabetes, will lead to permanent damage to your hearing. So it’s essential that you find medical treatment as quickly as possible, and if you’re experiencing hearing loss get that treated.
Pay Attention to Your Hearing
If you get regular hearing screenings, sudden hearing loss may be easier to identify and you might stop it from sneaking up on you by detecting it sooner. These screenings can usually detect specific hearing problems before they become noticeable to you.
There’s one more thing that diabetes and hearing loss have in common, managing them sooner will bring better results. Neglected hearing loss can produce other health concerns such as loss of cognitive function. Call us to schedule a hearing test.