You know to protect your hearing. Once any amount of hearing loss is gone, you can’t get it back. Turns out, that might not be as true as was once thought. A new study from Stanford Medical School found that noise-induced hearing loss caused by loud blasts could be reversible if treated immediately. The study, performed on mice, found that loud blasts did not shred the cochlea, as previously thought. Instead, they damage the hair and nerve cells that send sound signals to the brain. If certain medications were used immediately, the damage to mice could be reversible. So what about humans? The study has not been performed on them yet. But there’s hope that sudden noise-induced hearing loss can be reversed for them as well. That’s great news for people whose jobs bring them into contact with frequent loud noises, like military personnel. Sixty percent of those wounded in service have hearing loss, ear drum injuries, tinnitus, or a combination of those, mostly from IEDs. So, don’t make it a habit of hanging out around explosives. Wear hearing protection around all noises above 80 decibels. But know hope could be on the way for many for whom noise-induced hearing loss is nearly unavoidable. And if you think you’re suffering from hearing loss, come into Clifton Springs Hearing Center for a hearing test.