Millions of people over the age of 50 suffer from hearing problems. Some may not even realize that they have a problem, as hearing problems sometimes come on very gradually as a person ages. Others lose their hearing quickly due to some sort of accident or incident.

Hearing aids can help some of these people deal with their hearing losses, while others may need other kinds of help. Here are the four most common kinds of hearing problems:

Hearing Problems in a Crowd

As a person gets older, they sometimes get a gradual loss of their hearing due to the cells in the middle ear dying off as they reach old age. The middle ear has a finite amount of cells and once they die, they are gone forever and people end up with problems hearing.

Problems are usually noticed in a noisy atmosphere like a crowd first because the affected person can’t hear speech very clearly. They can usually hear in a quiet environment. This is the type of hearing loss that can be helped by the use of a hearing aid.

Clogged up ears

Sometimes a person loses hearing due to an ear infection and the ears get clogged u with mucus or wax. The person might also have pain, ringing in the ears or feel dizzy. If this is the case, your hearing can be salvaged by having your doctor clean out the ears through suction or irrigation and the infection cleared with antibiotic ear drops.

Sudden Loss of Hearing

If the ears get swelled up or full of fluid due to an infection, or as a side effect of some types of medication, then a person can suddenly lose their hearing. If caught in time, this can sometimes be fixed by giving steroids within 72 hours of the loss of hearing. Sometimes hearing loss could be due to a tumor on the auditory nerve, and this is a much more serious situation, or it could be caused by Lyme disease or thyroid disease.

Meniere’s Disease

This is a condition where the fluid in the inner ear is affected and it is thought that as many as one in 500 people in the US could have this hearing problem. It is treated with diuretics, low sodium diet and sometimes the excess fluid is drained out.

Hearing Aids

If your doctor prescribes a hearing aid to help alleviate your hearing problems, the Oticon Agile Pro Mini Rite hearing aid is one of the newer and more modern versions that can help hearing loss victims to hear again. It is designed to help the wearer to distinguish and recognize normal sounds like voices and help the brain to make sense of them once again.