The Connection Between Hearing Loss and Diabetes

Woman testing her sugar to see if diabetes is affecting her hearing health.

Hearing loss can catch you by surprise, it’s true. But occasionally, hearing issues bypass the sneaking entirely, in favor of a sudden (and often alarming), cat-like pounce. It could happen like this: you wake up, drag yourself out of bed, and maybe you don’t detect it until you finish showering but your hearing feels…off, or different Maybe muffled.

Initially, you think that you have water in your ears, but when your hearing doesn’t get any better as the day advances, you get a little more worried.

At times like this, when you experience a sudden severe difference in your hearing, you should seek out medical help. The reason why you should get help is that sudden hearing loss is often a symptom of an underlying medical problem. At times, that larger problem can be a blockage in your ear. Maybe some earwax.

But sudden hearing loss can also be a symptom of diabetes.

What is Diabetes?

You’d be forgiven for not instantly seeing the links between hearing loss and diabetes. Your ears and your pancreas seem very far apart, distance-wise.

With type 2 diabetes, sugars in your body aren’t properly broken down and converted into energy. This occurs because your body either isn’t producing enough insulin or it’s not responding to the insulin that you do make. That’s why treatments for diabetes usually entail injections or infusions of insulin.

What is The Link Between Diabetes And Hearing?

Diabetes is a common complicated affliction which can often be degenerative. It needs to be managed carefully, normally with the help of your doctor. So how is that associated with your ears?

Well, it turns out that sudden hearing loss can frequently be an indication that you’re developing type 2 diabetes. The connection lies in the ability of diabetes to cause collateral damage, most often to nerves and blood vessels around the extremities. These precise changes have a powerful affect on the tiny hairs in your ears responsible for your hearing (called stereocilia). So you may suffer sudden hearing loss even before other, more conventional symptoms of diabetes appear (numb toes, for instance).

Is There Anything I Can Do?

If you’re in this scenario, and your hearing has suddenly begun acting up, you’ll definitely want to get checked by a medical professional. Diabetes, for example, will frequently be completely symptomless at first, so you may not even recognize you have it until you start to notice some of these red flags.

Getting help as soon as possible will give you the greatest number of options, as is the case for most forms of hearing loss. But you need to watch out for more than just diabetes. Here are a few other possible causes of sudden hearing loss:

  • Tissue growth in the ear.
  • Some kinds of infections.
  • Issues with your blood pressure.
  • Blood circulation problems (these are often a result of other problems, such as diabetes).
  • Autoimmune diseases.
  • A blockage in the ear (like an ear wax build-up).

Without a proper medical diagnosis, it can be difficult to figure out the cause of your sudden hearing loss and how to address the underlying symptoms.

Treatment Options For Sudden Hearing Loss

The good news here is, whether your sudden hearing loss is brought on by diabetes or infection (or any of these other issues), effective management of the underlying cause will usually return your hearing back to normal levels if you recognize it early. Once the blockage is removed or, in the case of diabetes, once blood circulation problems have been addressed, your hearing will most likely return to normal if you dealt with it promptly.

But that really does rely on prompt and effective treatment. If they are not addressed in time, some conditions, including diabetes, will bring about irreversible damage to your hearing. So it’s vital that you seek out medical treatment as quickly as you can, and if you’re suffering from hearing loss get that treated.

Keep an Eye on Your Ears

If you get routine hearing screenings, sudden hearing loss may be easier to detect and you might stop it from sneaking up on you by detecting it sooner. Specific hearing issues can be detected in these screenings before you notice them.

Diabetes and hearing loss have one other thing in common: the sooner you get treatment, the better. Untreated hearing loss can lead to other health concerns such as loss of cognitive function. Call us to schedule a hearing test.

The site information is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. To receive personalized advice or treatment, schedule an appointment.