Quote:
Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer
Not necessarily, a lot of peoples ears have one that is effected more than the other. For example many people get ear infections, but often it is in the same ear every time. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Ayu had common ear infections a lot in her left ear as a child.
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Infection is a lot different from ear exposure to sound. The ear is made of many parts. Bacterial infections mostly depends on the anatomy of the conductive parts of the ear -
the middle ear-, and if you get an infection in
one of the ears, there's a reason why that particular ear might have predisposition for later ear infections (depending on the injury caused to the eardrum, bacterial colonization of the middle ear, "scars", auditory tube impairment). On the other hand, deafness due to acoustic trauma is a totally different thing. It affects the
inner ear, the cochlea. When you hear a sound, almost always both ears get stimullated by it, so both cochleas get stimullated. If the noise is too loud, both ears will suffer almost simillar damage. Most often, one might suffer a little more than the other, but both will suffer hearing loss. There are exceptions, but they are unlikely (someone who hears extremely loud music for years by using a headphone in only one of the ears, and always the in the exactly same ear, but truth is, people use headphones in
both ears, and the loudness is the same for both). Ambient exposure to sound causes damage for both ears. I'm not saying this as a random thing, because I'm a bachelor in medical science myself (not showing of, but just validating that my points aren't made up or came from some random thoughts).
Most people who go deaf because of acoustic trauma usually have bilateral hearing impairment. That's even used to make a difference when you get a patient whose complaint is hearing loss:
Is it unilateral or bilateral? abrupt or progressive?
If you still don't believe me after all the explanation, emedicine is a
very reliable site on medicine articles. Here's an article on noise induced hearing loss:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by emedicine
# Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) develops slowly after many years of exposure. Susceptibility varies quite widely, but 10 years or more of exposure is generally required for significant hearing loss to occur. In 1990, Dobie listed criteria for the diagnosis of occupation noise-induced hearing loss (ONIHL), as follows:
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* ONIHL is always a neurosensory loss.
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* ONIHL is almost always bilateral.
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http://www.emedicine.com/ent/topic723.htm
after all this, I'm not completely exckluding the possibility of acoustic trauma. These diseases can happen in unique ways and even completely atypical, but if ayu indeed lost hearing on one ear only, and the other is perfect, acoustic trauma is unlikely.