I find it interesting that your doctor told you that you had nerve damage. I wonder what kind of testing and evaluation was done. I've met many people who were told by medical doctors that they had 'nerve damage' that caused their hearing loss, and further told them that nothing could be done to help them. I am one of those people. I received that information from ENT specialists in 1963. I lived with progressive hearing loss for 15 years after that diagnosis before I even tried hearing aids. When I finally became desperate enough to try anything, I found that hearing aids did help. They didn't correct the problem, but they made a difference, and kept me in the hearing world! In time I learned that hearing aids used with other hearing assistive technology helped even more. (Hearing loops, FM systems, direct audio input and now BlueTooth devices.) My sensorineural hearing loss continued to deteriorate over time, and eventually I had a cochlear implant which gave me back my life! Noise damage is what causes most sensorineural hearing loss. It destroys the hair cells in the cochlea/inner ear. In fact, statistics show that veterans returning from combat zones have a very high incidence of noise induced hearing loss. Rock music without ear plugs is also a culprit, as is noise from just about every power tool on the planet. The bottom line here is that in most incidences, it's the cochlea that is damaged; not the auditory nerve. The cochlea is the part of the inner ear that connects with the auditory nerve to let the brain know what you're hearing. So, if there is damage to the cochlea that makes it difficult or impossible to stimulate that auditory nerve, hearing loss is the result. The degree of hearing loss is related to the hair cells that are damaged. Not all of them go down at once, so you continue to hear in some frequencies. It's likely your noise induced hearing loss has damaged your cochlea/inner ear, not the auditory nerve. However, that is what was believed by many in the medical field a few decades ago. Good Luck. Think positive as there is help out there but you have to find the right answers and the right professional help.

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