Taking Care of Your Senses

September 11, 2018

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We tend to take our senses for granted. But it’s extremely important that we monitor and maintain them, reaching out to relevant professionals if we ever experience a change or problem with any of our senses. For now, let’s focus on two of your senses that have a huge impact on your ability to live your life as you know it - your sight and your hearing!


Sight

The majority of us are extremely dependent on our sight. While you can make your way around the world and carry out day to day activities without sight, having good sight does make things a whole lot easier. You can practice eye exercises, which you can learn more about here, and you should check in at least once every two years. Booking an eye appointment allows a professional optometrist to conduct a series of tests that will highlight signs of visual deterioration, and will mean that you can be prescribed an accurate pair of lenses for glasses frames or contact lenses. It also allows your optician to identify signs of visual disease and other forms of disease, such as diabetes. Let’s take a moment to consider a few.

Macular Degeneration

Macular degeneration is otherwise referred to as “age related macular degeneration” or “ARMD”. It is a visual condition which results in a deterioration of sight, blurred vision, or absolutely no vision in the centre of an individual’s visual field. While there are rarely noticeable initial symptoms, however, an eye exam will be able to catch early signs, intermediate signs, or late signs of the disease. Luckily, macular degeneration will not generally result in complete blindness. But being unable to see anything in the centre of your field of vision can generally cause problems in regards to facial recognition, reading, driving, or carrying out other everyday activities that require a complete field of vision.

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a medical condition that is a result of fluid within the eye putting pressure on your optic nerve. While you may not experience noticeable symptoms of this problem, your sight can deteriorate, and the condition can cause permanent sight loss. So, it’s extremely important that you attend regular eye tests, as this is the only way to identify and deal with this problem.

Diabetes

Now, when we think of diabetes, our first thoughts don’t really tend to centre around our eyes and vision. But eye tests can detect early warning signs, as diabetes can negatively affect the small capillaries in the eye’s retina. Identifying this problem early on can help you to reach out to other medical professionals who will be able to offer you treatment and lifestyle advice.


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Hearing

While we are aware that we should make relatively regular appointments with our local optometrist, we tend to be a bit more lax when it comes to our auditory health. This is probably because we generally associate hearing loss with the elderly. The imagery that springs to mind when we speak about hearing loss tends to be an OAP who is hard of hearing asking us to repeat ourselves time and time again. There are, of course, good reasons for this association. There are plenty of auditory issues that are directly linked to the ageing process. Our hearing is extremely dependent on small hairs that are located along our ear canals. These vibrate, but over the years, they can begin to flatten and become less effective in their role. This isn’t all too surprising - they’ll have experienced years’ worth of wear and tear. However, it’s extremely important that you are conscious of your hearing ability and note any minor changes that may take place, even while you are young. Problems can occur at any point, and generally speaking, the sooner you start to tackle hearing difficulties, the sooner you can seek help and be fitted with hearing aids or learn sign language to help you along the way should you suffer partial hearing loss or become deaf. Here are the four main types of hearing loss to familiarize yourself with.


  • Sensorineural hearing loss - sensorineural hearing loss is generally a result of a flattening of the small hairs that exist within your ear canals. It is commonly associated with difficulties  in hearing or focusing on background noise or having a constant ringing sensation in your ears. Another common symptom is finding that people’s speech is muffled.
  • Conductive hearing loss - if you ever find that everything sounds muffled or that everything sounds like it is being projected at a very low volume (perhaps you feel that you’d just like to turn the volume up on your whole life), there’s a chance that you could be suffering from conductive hearing loss. The causes of this condition can generally be boiled down to a hole in your ear drum, damage to the small bones that form your ear, or ear wax related blockages.
  • Neural hearing loss - individuals suffering from neural hearing loss are generally born with dysfunctional auditory nerves, which transmits signals from the ear to the brain. However, your auditory nerve can be damaged through injury or accidents, so it’s always a good idea to be familiar with it as a potential problem.
  • Mixed hearing loss - if you can identify with a combination of different aspects of the types of hearing loss mentioned above, you may be suffering from mixed hearing loss.


You do, of course, have three other main senses. However, hopefully, the above advice has helped you to know what to look out for when it comes to problems in regards to sight and hearing difficulties!

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5 comments

  1. I have to definitely take more care my eyes. Using computer screens all day can take a toll on them.
    -Allie(VA)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:43 PM

      Staring at computer screens is horrible for the eyes, but so necessary!

      Delete
  2. This is a wonderful reminder, I totally agree that we tend to take our senses for granite!! Such great information to remember!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sometimes it is good to get a little reminder about our body. We just tend to take it for granted how this wonderful machine just keeps on working despite the 'abuse' we commit. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:44 PM

      And abuse we do put our bodies through!!

      Delete

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