What To Do When You Lose Hearing During A Sinus Infection
If you have a sinus infection and you suddenly begin to lose your hearing, it can be scary to wonder whether your infection will cause permanent damage. However, don't panic; this guide shows you the causes and course of action for problems with sinus and hearing loss.
Why Does a Sinus Infection Affect Hearing?
A sinus infection can affect your hearing because your ears, nose, and throat are closely linked. There are different pathways that connect these systems together; this is why you will sometimes have nasal dripping in your throat when you are congested in your nasal passageways. When a sinus infection is left untreated, the passages in your sinus can become severely blocked so that they affect the pressure in your entire ear, nose and throat system.
Your hearing depends on the pressure in these systems to transmit sound. When a sound wave enters your ear, the pressure is transmitted through tiny hairs in the ear passage to your ear drum. A blocked sinus can interfere with this process by not allowing the pressure to transmit correctly. This type of hearing loss is often referred to as conductive hearing loss.
Generally, a conductive hearing loss problem is not permanent; it will get better once the sinus infection goes down.
What to Do when Conductive Hearing Loss Occurs
Although you may not cause permanent damage with your sinus infection, sinus and hearing loss can be considered a serious problem if it begins to interfere with your daily life. The best thing to do is to visit an ear, nose and throat specialist who can evaluate the problem. They may first do some evaluations to make sure that your sinus infection is the cause of hearing loss. Then, they will give you some treatments for the sinus infection.
There are a number of ways to treat a sinus infection. Antibiotics may be effective, but some specialists prefer to give out steroids as sinus medication. Equipment for draining the sinuses may be advised, too; a neti pot is a great over the counter treatment for sinus infections. If your sinus infection is causing a lot of pain or facial inflammation, then an over the counter pain reliever such as ibuprofen can help relieve these symptoms. Overall, problems with sinus and hearing loss are generally treatable by your doctor, but they do deserve some investigation and care to make sure that they don't hint at a more serious problem. Contact a local professional, such as Cohen Angelique MD SC, for further assistance.