What are the causes of deafness?

There are many causes of deafness, which are mainly divided into congenital and acquired. There is a genetic factor among congenital factors, and deafness can be inherited. In addition, if the mother is infected during pregnancy and given ototoxic drugs, such as gentamicin, can cause fetal hearing problems, many of which can cause hearing loss at birth or shortly after birth, or it may be delayed.

There are many causes of acquired deafness, such as the greater the likelihood of hearing loss as we age. In addition, it has a lot to do with the surrounding environment, and working under long-term noise or long-term exposure to noise can also cause hearing loss.

Many factors, both congenital and acquired, can eventually cause deafness.

Congenital factors, including genetic factors, maternal infection factors during pregnancy and childbirth, etc., often lead to hearing loss at birth, shortly after birth, and of course, it may also be delayed.

Acquired deafness can occur at any age. For example, the risk of hearing loss increases as we age; The environment or noise is too loud and exceeds the normal tolerance threshold; Noise pollution for a long time, etc.

Deafness has different causes due to its different types. Conductive hearing loss** is mainly caused by inflammation, trauma, foreign body or other mechanical blockage, deformity. The main causes of sensorineural hearing loss are:

One is congenital deafness; Second, it is caused by the use of some drugs, such as some antibiotics, salicylic acid diuretics or antineoplastic drugs may cause neural hearing loss; Third, some viral infections, vascular lesions, and labyrinthine edema may also cause sensorineural hearing loss; Fourth, it is caused by some genetic or chromosomal abnormalities caused by heredity; fifth, it is caused by head trauma or ear trauma; Sixth, hearing loss caused by long-term noise; Seventh, it is caused by inner ear damage caused by systemic diseases, such as hypertension, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, leukemia, hyperlipidemia, etc.; Eighth, it is caused by the lack of metabolic disorders of certain essential elements, such as iodine, iron, etc.; Nine is due to autoimmune inner ear disease.

The causes of deafness are hereditary, medicated, noise, neurological, and acquired, such as physical causes, traumatic causes, and otitis media.

Different types of deafness can be caused by different causes.

1. If it is conductive deafness, it may be caused by the following reasons:

1. Congenital developmental causes. It may lead to hypoplasia of the auricle, malformation of the ear canal, atresia of the ear canal, etc., which hinders the transmission of external sound waves to the inner ear.

2. Acquired factors. If the ear canal is covered with cerumen or if there is a pseudocholesteatoma, the ear canal may be blocked, preventing sound waves from entering the inner ear. In addition, if there is a perforation of the eardrum, a fracture of the ossicular chain, or a dislocation of the ossicular chain, the transmission of sound waves to the middle ear will be interrupted, resulting in conductive hearing loss.

2. If it is neural deafness, the patient may have a deafness gene in the family, and when the family member reaches a certain age, the disease may occur. In addition, certain ototoxic drugs, such as aminoglycoside antibiotics such as streptomycin, can also cause the development of neural hearing loss.

3. If it is mixed deafness, there are conductive deafness and neural deafness at the same time.

There are many causes of deafness, such as earwax blocking the external auditory canal, otitis media, sensorineural hearing loss, etc.

1. After earwax blocks the external auditory canal, it leads to hearing loss to a certain extent, which is one of the causes of deafness.

2. Otitis media is due to perforation of the eardrum and damage to the ossicular chain, which causes the sound to be unable to pass through the middle ear from the external auditory canal and enter the inner ear to produce dull hearing, so to a certain extent, deafness will also occur.

3. Sensorineural hearing loss. Sensorineural hearing loss occurs when the sensory nerve of the cochlear or auditory nerve is damaged due to certain factors, such as noise or drug damage. In the short term, such as sudden deafness, the course of the disease is within a few days or within a month of nothing, and the effect is relatively good.

However, if the time is relatively long, such as presbycusis, often a few months or years or even more than ten years, the effect will be relatively poor, and hearing can only be improved through hearing aids. Or if the hearing loss is severe, reaching bilateral severe deafness or above, cochlear implants may be considered. Cochlear implants can improve hearing in the cochlear implant of the human body.