14 reasons your ears are acting weird—and when you should be concerned

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Age

Everyone knows that your hearing gets worse with age, but it may still take you by surprise when it happens to you. More than a half of Australian adults over the age of 60 have hearing loss, and almost three quarters of people older than 71 have trouble hearing. Lifestyle plays a large role in when, if at all, you start having trouble hearing. Frequent exposure to loud noises, smoking, and whether or not it runs in your family heavily influences age-related hearing loss. Typically age-related hearing loss starts slowly and gradually progresses equally in both ears.

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Loud noises

If you've even been to a concert you know what it feels like to have your ears ring or rush for hours afterwards. That cotton-ball feeling is a sign of permanent damage to the cells in your inner ears. Sure, your hearing may seem to be back to normal in a few days, but you can't ever heal that damage. "The number one preventable cause of hearing loss in adults is noise exposure," says audiologist Alison M. Grimes, the director of audiology at UCLA Medical Center. (If you have constant ringing in your ears, or tinnitus, try these 10 highly effective treatments.)

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Cumulative hearing damage

One raucous concert won't leave you permanently deaf, but the more you expose yourself to loud noises, the worse the damage is and the more likely you are to experience trouble hearing at an earlier age. Turn up the volume at the gym to tune out the annoying music they play, mow the lawn without ear protection, roll the windows down in the car and turn up the music—it all adds up.

"It's much more common now to see older teenagers and younger adults with hearing loss," says Grimes. "It is presumed that this is a result of increased noise exposure." If you can't have a conversation with the person next to you at a normal volume or if they can hear what you are listening to, your music is too loud. Same goes for anything else you are doing. Either turn it down or wear ear protection to prevent damage to your hearing.

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Tumour

While not as common, tumours along the nerve that connects the ear to the brain or in the inner ear can cause a noticeable decline in hearing. Typically these tumours are found in people who have hearing loss in one ear, but not the other. Dizziness and vertigo are also signs that a tumor may be present. It's important to get a comprehensive evaluation from a specialist as soon as symptoms start to determine if a tumour is causing hearing loss and treat the issue.

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Excessive pressure in the eardrum

While experiencing popping or increased pressure in your eardrums while flying or swimming under water is completely normal, painful pressure or popping without a change in air pressure is not. A swollen throat or ear can close your Eustachian tube, which connects your middle ear to your upper throat, and prevent your eardrums from equalizing to the pressure of the air around you.

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Trauma

Head trauma can cause rapid, potentially irreversible hearing damage. "A blow to the ear, if it's just right, can rupture the eardrum. Head trauma can disrupt the bones in the middle ear, " says Grimes. If the blow is severe enough, it can cause hearing to be permanently lost by draining the fluid in the inner ear.

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Diabetes

It's no coincidence that hearing loss and diabetes are two of America's most common health concerns—as people with diabetes are twice as likely to develop hearing loss than people who do not have diabetes. While the exact reason is unknown, researchers believe that diabetes may damage the nerves and blood vessels in the inner ear. People with diabetes can protect their hearing by carefully monitoring and managing their glucose levels, according to Dr Erika Woodson, the medical director of Cleveland Clinic's Hearing Implant Program.

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Heart disease and high cholesterol

Heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol may also damage the ear and harm hearing because they prevent proper blood flow.

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Medications

There are more than 200 medications that are known to damage hearing on the market today. Before you start throwing out your entire medicine cabinet, know that most of these drugs are only used to treat severe, life-threatening conditions like cancer and aggressive infection. However, many medications may cause dizziness, and high doses of aspirin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen and naproxen can also cause ringing in your ears (tinnitus) and hearing loss.

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Infection

Ear infections can cause temporary trouble hearing, pain, swelling, and fluids to drain from the ear. If frequent enough, especially for children, ear infections can permanently damage hearing.

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Earwax buildup

The friendliest ear problem on the list, earwax buildup is highly treatable and preventable. "Everybody makes wax, and some people make more than others. But for 99% of us, it's not a problem," says Woodson. Earwax buildup can cause hearing to be muffled, distorted, or block hearing entirely. Attempting to clean your ear at home with things like cotton buds can make the problem worse and impact the wax around your eardrum, making it more difficult to hear. Ears are self-cleaning. If you do have earwax buildup or a blockage, a quick visit to your doctor can clean it out and restore your hearing.

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Sudden hearing loss

Sudden deafness, or sudden sensorineural hearing loss, comes on without warning or an obvious cause. "A person can go to bed at night with two normal hearing ears and wake up in the morning and one ear is completely deaf," says Grimes. If treated quickly, oral steroids may bring back some or all of the hearing. However, if left untreated the hearing loss becomes permanent after 2-4 weeks.

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Otosclerosis

Your bones are constantly remodeling themselves, including the bones in your middle ear. But when that remodeling goes awry, the bones in your ear become overly stiff and no longer conduct sound properly. More than three million people the U.S. have otosclerosis, a hardening of the bones of the middle ear, and it is most common in middle-aged women. It typically starts in one ear and moves to the other. Some people also experience ringing, roaring, buzzing, or hissing in the affected ear.

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Hyperacusis, or noise sensitivity

A tapping pencil or the whine of a refrigerator may drive you up the wall, but you may have hyperacusis if the noise from a running faucet, walking on leaves, or shuffling papers are painfully loud. While many people can be sensitive to sound, hyperacusis is rare—approximately one in 50,000 people will develop it. It's unclear what causes the condition, but people with hyperacusis do not process noise in the brain normally.