Mixed Hearing Loss: Symptoms, Causes And Treatments – Forbes ... - Forbes

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The symptoms of mixed hearing loss are often similar to those associated with other types of hearing loss. "Patients with mixed hearing loss will experience decreased hearing, as will those with general hearing losses. Some may also experience ear fullness, fluctuations in hearing and popping sounds in their ear," explains Patricia Lake, Au.D., an audiologist at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in Connecticut.

With that said, there are several additional common mixed hearing loss symptoms to watch for, per Dr. Lake:

  • An inability to hear phones ringing, soft noises or other everyday sounds
  • Constantly having to ask people if they can repeat what they just said
  • Needing to stare at people when they talk to understand what they're saying
  • Avoiding crowded environments because it's difficult to hear conversations when there's a lot of background noise

How much these symptoms affect your everyday life depends on the severity of your hearing loss. For some, hearing loss might look like being unable to hear soft noises or when people whisper. For others, it could look like the inability to hear others when they speak at a conversational volume.

Diagnosing Mixed Hearing Loss

An audiologist can diagnose both the type and severity of hearing loss you're experiencing, often beginning with a hearing test.

"During the hearing test, the patient listens for very soft beeps or tones through earphones and raises a hand or pushes a button when they can hear the tones. Then, the patient listens for very soft beeps or tones through a bone conduction oscillator," explains Dr. Lake.

Since the oscillator bypasses the ear canal, eardrum and middle ear, it tests the hearing abilities of the cochlea (part of the inner ear) directly.

After the patient listens to 30 minutes of beeps with the oscillator, the audiologist plays the beeps without the oscillator, testing the hearing abilities of the patient's outer and middle ear.

"The audiologist compares responses to beeps while listening through earphones to responses to beeps while listening through a bone conduction oscillator. If there's a difference in responses, with the bone conduction oscillator suggesting hearing loss, but not as much hearing loss as when listening through headphones, mixed hearing loss is suspected," says Dr. Lake.

If mixed hearing loss is the suspected diagnosis, the audiologist will most likely suggest follow-up tests. A CT scan can determine whether there's damage or a problem in the outer or middle ear. An otoacoustic emission test, which plays a noise through a small probe to the ear canal to cause the small hair cells to stand up if the inner ear is working properly, is often used to test the inner ear's health. An MRI can also test for inner ear hearing loss or help determine whether hearing loss is worse in one ear than the other.

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