Allergies and Hearing
by Cheryl North
When you think about health and nutrition, it’s important to be aware of how various foodstuffs affect your wellbeing.
It’s quite amazing just how many allergens there are in a well balanced diet. Things like gluten in wheat breads and cereals, lactose in uncultured dairy products, mono sodium glutamate in tomatoes, - I’m sure you can think of dozens – that can turn your life upside down.
Allergy has been called the great masquerader because it can contribute to and mimic many illnesses that we do not typically associated with allergy.
I have a particular interest in issues surrounding hearing, and in the fact that there may be allergies involved with some conductive hearing losses.
Conductive Hearing Loss results from problems in the middle ear, known as Otitis Media.
Middle ear infection is extremely common and very few children never experience it. Otitis Media can be painful, but is usually short term & the Conductive Hearing Loss is temporary.
Otisis Media begins with an ear ache, swelling of the membrane in the eustachian tube (resulting in blockage of the tube that normally aerates the middle ear) and results in a build up of fluid behind the ear drum. It is the pressure of the fluid that causes the pain and it is the fluid that decreases the amount of sound being conducted through the middle ear that causes the hearing loss.
As I said before Otitis Media is extremely common and most children will experience it once or twice in their lives.
When Otitis Media becomes recurrent, there is enormous cause for concern. Not only because the child is miserable and maybe in considerable pain but
because the child’s normal hearing becomes distorted.
Young children are not fluent language speakers although they are learning at a phenomenal rate. The experience of having a fluctuating hearing level as a result of Otitis Media in childhood can result in a life time of difficulties. There is research to suggest that the language pathways in the brain form differently. Some children who have suffered from recurrent Otitis Media have serious problems with understanding what is going on around them, that causes major social and academic problems at school.
Sadly the repercussions of Otitis Media and Fluctuating Conductive Hearing Loss in childhood is generally underestimated. After all it only last a short while, the hearing loss is only slight or moderate, it’s all temporary – Right?
Wrong!
For many children life goes on wonderfully, BUT for some, early Otitis Media leaves them with lifelong difficulties and even an unrecognized permanent disability that they carry with them. And they may fail at school, and socially and get into trouble. A small hearing loss but a major loss in Quality of Life.
Some years ago I read of the work being done by Dr Michael A Schmidt on ear infections in children. He pointed out that in one study that allergic children had double the chance of suffering from Otitis Media as non allergic children.
The main allergens from his findings were food (with dairy products at the top of the list) and airborne irritants (with cigarette smoke topping the list).
It was with this in mind that I met up with some friends I had not seen for some time. Sadly their new son had recurrent Otitis
Media. They were aware of my concerns about language development and had been conscientiously taking their son to doctors and specialists who were giving him vast quantities of antibiotics. (we’ll save antibiotics for another time!)
He was eighteen months old and had never slept through the night and had often been very miserable. They were quite distraught. I suggested they talk to the Otorhinolaryngologist (Ear Nose & Throat Specialist) about the possibility of a food allergy. The specialist simply dismissed the idea as nonsense.
Later my friends and I talked about what the specialist had said and I suggested that they could try cutting out uncultured cow’s milk products, continuing with baby yoghurt (the culturing uses up the lactose) – being very careful to replace each item with a substitute eg milk with soy milk, cheese with soy cheese etc. I didn’t expect any immediate changes and didn’t want to cause any unnecessary problems with dietary changes.
I received a phone call from a delighted friend the very next day. She had removed cows milk products from his diet the previous day. She reported that he’d had a good day and then he sleep quietly through the entire night. The first time in eighteen months! You can imagine how happy she was!
How simple was that!
Consider the possibility of an allergy if you are unwell and the doctor can’t find anything wrong.
After all no one knows what you eat and how it makes you feel better than you do!
Cheryl North (http://www.therightnutrient.com) is an educator with diverse interests in Health and Nutrition.
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