Hearing is a very complex mechanism. Sound waves enter your ear canal where they cause the tympanic membrane (eardrum) to vibrate. The sound energy then gets transmitted through three small middle ear bones (ossicles) to the inner ear organ, called the cochlea. Lastly, the sound travels along the auditory nerve to your brain, where it is perceived as a noise.
If you have a problem with any structure in the ear before the cochlea, you will have a conductive hearing loss. Otosclerosis is a common cause of conductive hearing loss. It is an inherited disorder that causes excessive stiffening of the stapes bone, the smallest bone in our body. When movement of the stapes bone is impeded (by extra calcification in otosclerosis), conductive hearing loss occurs.
Few types of hearing loss can be surgically corrected as well as otosclerosis. A surgical procedure, known as laser stapedotomy, can usually correct most of the hearing loss related to otosclerosis. Generally, the operation is curative for this condition. If a patient is not a candidate for the surgery, or does not want to have surgery performed, wearing a hearing aid is also an option.