Is There a Cure for Noise-Induced Hearing Loss?

The leading cause of hearing loss is excessive noise exposure. Since people love listening to loud music and turn on lawn mowers without ear protection, everyone just seems likely to lose their hearing. This kind of hearing loss is due to the destruction of hair cells in the inner ears. The hair cells are so delicate that they are easily destroyed by loud noise. Damaged hair cells are irreparable, thus, making NIHL a permanent condition.

But researchers from New Zealand are finding new hope with this new drug ADAC, which is used six hours after intense noise exposure to lessen the possibility of hearing impairment. It works by breaking down the byproducts of cells in the inner ear after excessive exposure to loud noise. But this drug isn’t a cure—rather it’s a preventive drug, which should be injected subcutaneously for five days.

At the moment, there remains no cure to regenerate damaged hair cells. Once the damage is done, there is no way to cure it. This is why it is largely advised that people should protect the ears from damaging decibels. Virtually, it’s easy—you only need to keep away from noisy places and wear ear protective devices when working in noisy areas. But for many people this seems impossible.

Avoidance of noise is an important aspect of standard tinnitus treatments. Remedy for hearing loss and tinnitus include deterrence of further damage.

the DeafBlog: Ear injections could reverse ‘permanent’ hearing loss caused by loud noise: