What is affected in Otosclerosis?
Nobody actually knows why Otosclerosis happens.
If you have Otosclerosis, you may speak unusually quietly.
However, some people with Otosclerosis have no family history.
Some causes of deafness run in families, particularly Otosclerosis.
Otosclerosis is the most common cause of hearing loss in young people.
Otosclerosis is a condition of the middle ear
and mainly affects the tiny stirrup(stapes) bone.
It may also reduce the chance of Otosclerosis progressing to affect your inner ear.
Usually both ears are affected in Otosclerosis but sometimes only one ear is affected.
In Otosclerosis, your eardrum usually looks normal
and healthy when your doctor looks inside your ear.
They will do hearing tests which will show a specific pattern of hearing loss in Otosclerosis.
The effect of Otosclerosis on your ears is to make your own voice
sound loud to you.
Otosclerosis happens because there is abnormal bone formation
in one of the tiny bones in the middle ear.
There is some limited evidence
that fluoride tablets may possibly slow the progression of the Otosclerosis in some cases.
Your doctor may refer you
on to an ear, nose and throat specialist who will be able to make the diagnosis of Otosclerosis.
However, what is known is that Otosclerosis is not caused
or worsened by listening to loud music or working in a loud environment.
In Otosclerosis, it seems that the re-modelling process of the stirrup(stapes)-
one of the tiny bony ossicles in the middle ear- becomes faulty.
Sometimes the specialist may decide that you need to have a
CT scan which will give them more information about how severe the Otosclerosis is.