Muffled hearing can present for a wide variety of reasons. For most individuals, it’s a short-term situation. In other cases, muffled hearing can be a precursor of more substantial hearing-related issues. That’s because, for the most part, hearing loss is a slowly progressing condition. Symptoms build slowly and over time.
One of the earliest symptoms of slowly advancing long-term hearing loss is the sense that your hearing is muffled. Muffled hearing, however, isn’t always a sign that you’re developing long-term hearing loss. Indeed, millions of individuals experience muffled hearing every year.
You may be wondering: when should I be worried about muffled hearing? Generally, the answer varies. Finding the proper treatment for your muffled hearing depends on understanding the underlying cause. Timely solutions can in some cases help get your hearing back to normal, or, at least reduce possible harm. Contacting us for a consultation can help you begin this process, typically leading to successful treatments, so you can keep enjoying the sounds of your everyday life.
What is muffled hearing?
When sound can’t travel through your outer, middle, and inner ear in a normal way, your hearing can sound muffled. This leads to a noticeable decrease in sound quality. In most instances, individuals with muffled hearing can still hear some or even most things, but everything sounds quieter or jumbled. This might especially affect your ability to hear and understand voices and spoken language.
In many instances, and depending on the root cause, muffled hearing can be associated with a sense of fullness or stuffiness in your ears. Sometimes, when you’re on a plane or have a cold you might experience this feeling. This clogged feeling, however, doesn’t always come with muffled hearing.
Causes of muffled hearing
Muffled hearing can be caused by all kinds of problems. In order to establish the correct course of treatment, it’s essential to determine the root cause. Here are a few of the most prevalent causes:
- Hearing loss related to age: Most people will experience decreasing hearing as they age. Needless to say, when you’re 80 all of your senses will be less acute than when you were 18. Over time, muffled hearing can be the consequence of this natural decline of your ability to hear.
- Travel: The changing altitude associated with air travel can frequently cause a plugged feeling in the ear, accompanied by muffled hearing. Your hearing will go back to normal fairly quickly once your physical conditions return to normal.
- Infection: Inflammation of the ear canal will frequently accompany problems like ear infections or sinus infections. This will diminish your ability to hear by causing the ear canal to swell shut. Muffled hearing symptoms caused by infections will normally clear up once the underlying illness has been treated.
- Sensorineural hearing loss: Sometimes, muffled hearing can be the outcome of noise-related hearing loss. This type of hearing loss is, unfortunately, normally irreversible. One of the earliest recognizable symptoms is muffled hearing; but by the time you notice the distorted sounds, damage to your stereocilia has probably already happened. You should seek out treatment rapidly to avoid your hearing growing substantially worse quickly.
- Meniere’s Disease: Meniere’s Disease is a chronic balance and hearing problem. Dizziness, balance issues, tinnitus, and muffled ears will manifest over time because of this disease. The symptoms of Menier’s disease can be managed but not cured.
- Earwax buildup: Normally, earwax is a positive thing. The health of your ear canal depends on the generation of earwax. However, too much earwax can eventually cause muffled hearing (or even hearing loss). Try a few drops of hydrogen peroxide in your ear to loosen the wax up. Never attempt to dislodge stuck earwax with a cotton swab which will only push the wax further up into the ear canal. We can help if the problem persists.
The precise symptoms of muffled hearing will vary depending on the underlying cause.
Can muffled hearing be cured?
Some forms of muffled hearing can’t be cured. The base cause of your muffled hearing will establish the treatment method. For instance, if excessive earwax buildup is the primary cause, we may use specific tools to help you clean out your ear canal. Antibiotics are usually prescribed if your muffled hearing is being caused by an infection.
In terms of sensorineural hearing loss, the focus changes to symptom management rather than a complete cure. That’s because sensorineural hearing loss can’t be cured. But it is possible to control symptoms. There may be several approaches to this treatment including a set of hearing aids.
With hearing aids, you can continue to enjoy your day-to-day activities without hearing loss impacting your quality of life.
How to steer clear of muffled hearing in the first place
Some types of muffled hearing are hard to avoid, no matter what. For instance, ear infections and sinus infections are hard to easily avoid.
However, in most cases, routine hearing tests can help you steer clear of many of the causes of muffled hearing and detect any permanent hearing loss early. Contact us for an appointment right away.
