May 21st, 2018

Brand New Ears

We see a lot of ears here at Ear Suction Clinic and almost always our patients comment how they feel everything is much louder once their ears are professionally cleaned of wax. Of course everything normalises again after a few minutes (or in some cases a few hours) but why is it that we hear things as though they are much louder than we remembered once our ears are unblocked? The same question can be asked of the phenomenon that occurs when you uncover a previously covered eye. The light is too intense at first for our brain to handle.  What is happening here? Well, when your ears are blocked with wax, usually there is an associated hearing loss. In other words, all sounds arriving at your ears are attenuated by various amounts depending on the frequency of the sound. The brain is therefore starved of auditory stimulation at an intensity it was previously used to and hence re-calibrates itself to the new norm.  Our brain is very plastic in that is will always reorder itself in a way to compensate for change. Once it gets used to something new, this becomes the new norm. Once the wax is removed or the eye is uncovered, the brain's new sense of norm has changed all of a sudden. It needs time to catch up and therefore the new stimulation will appear too much at first. But just as before, the brain can reorganise itself and make the sounds around us normal again with time and stimulation. This acclimatisation process occurs all the time for new hearing aid wearers.  If you feel the sounds around you are not as loud as they once were or people are sounding blurry, you may have a hearing loss. Ear Suction Clinic can either clean you ears as well as measure you hearing ability with a thorough hearing assessment.