People Suffering Diabetes Are Likely To Experience Hearing Loss

If you or your loved one is suffering from diabetic and find out that phrases like ‘what did you say?’, ‘speak up’ etc  are often uttered, it might be because of the hearing loss. Researchers have come up with a study, which says that people suffering diabetes are twice as likely to experience hearing loss in comparison to people who are without diabetes. So, if you or your loved one is a diabetic patient make sure you consult one of the best hearing aid specialists in Bulleen.

Diabetic care includes regular monitoring of health. People suffering from this disease often check their blood glucose or do an annual eye exam. Most of them overlook the hearing tests, which is important.

Patients may not have an idea on what tests to do; so it must be the physicians who should refer the patients to go to an audiologist. I often see people who are of 85-90 years of age and they never even had a hearing screen. It is very essential to have a baseline.

There is probably a relation between hearing problems and diabetes, according to experts. Circulatory problems like those see in kidney disease, heart disease and diabetes may affect blood vessels in ears. It is a very fine area having fine blood vessels and it is said that as diabetes gets in the way with circulation, it gets in the way with hearing as well.

There are a few theories about how diabetes affects hearing. People suffering from diabetes are more likely to have hearing loss in comparison to those who are not affected with diabetes. Those having prediabetes have 30% more chance of having hearing impairment compared with people having normal blood glucose.

Hearing loss may be a problem that is caused due to poorly managed diabetes or diabetes for a long period of time much like diabetic retinopathy or diabetic kidney disease. Like kidneys, structure of inner ear is vascularized highly. Thus, hearing loss may be the result of changes to small blood vessels of inner ear.

According to another theory, diabetes may cause changes to auditory nerve’s fibers or sensory neurons. This condition causes damage to peripheral nerve in hands and feet of people with uncontrolled diabetes. Moreover, because noise is the factor for hearing loss, it is possible that people having diabetes are specifically susceptible to negative effects of the sustained loud noise.