Interesting Facts!

Do certain songs give you goosebumps? Usually, those goosebumps occur because the body senses that you are afraid, not from pleasure. A roller coaster ride, hot bath or fingernails on a chalkboard can also cause chills, known as frisson.

An insect, such as a moth, can hear frequencies up to 300 kilohertz, which is about 100 higher than some bats, and dogs don’t even come close! That pooch of yours only hears frequencies up to only 20.

Interesting Facts!Sometimes it seems like my ears have rocks in them, do yours? The ears have tiny crystals and if they move out of place, you can feel dizzy and feel like your head is spinning. This effect is called vertigo and can happen for many reasons, like hitting your head, a migraine, ear infection or spending a long time on your back. This usually occurs more likely as you get older and may go away on its own.

Your eardrums vibrate from sound. The shape of your outer ear helps capture and direct these waves into your eardrum and the vibrations pass through the tiny bones in your middle ear (ossicles) to the innermost part of your ear (cochlea). These are shaped like a snail’s shell and full of tiny hair cells and fluid that pick up on the eardrum’s vibrations that sends signals to your brain. Your brain turns them into something you can understand, which is sound.

When your head moves your ears stay balanced. The canals and organs in your inner ear have sensors that tell your brain if you are still, moving side to side or going up and down.

If all the young people realized that once they have hearing loss due to listening to loud music, and the loss would not get better, they might turn that iPod down. The tiny hairs in your cochlea can be hurt by noise, and messages may not get to your brain like they should. It takes time for this damage to occur so you might not notice it for a while. See your doctor if you have any ringing, buzzing or roaring in your ears or even muffled hearing.

The best thing to do to keep your ears from getting plugged when flying is to sleep. The air pressure on both sides of your eardrum is equal, so your ear feels blocked. When you are asleep, yawing and swallowing are great ways to even out the pressure.

Try hydrogen peroxide and baby oil to soften and unblock earwax. Just a few drops of these can help if your ears feel full or blocked. There are also over-the-counter kits that can help flush it out, too. Just be sure that the water or saline is at room temperature or it could make you dizzy if too cold or hot.

These are just a few interesting facts that you may or may not have known, but perhaps some of the information will help you in some way or another.
-Dr Fredda Branyon