You may think hearing loss would be obvious to spot, but it’s not as easy to recognize as you might believe.
To start with, most people with hearing loss have difficulty only with select sounds and in specified situations. Consequently, if you can hear normally on some occasions, you’ll be inclined to pin the blame on other factors or other people for the occasions you do have trouble hearing.
Second, hearing loss takes place slowly and gradually as time passes, so it’s challenging to recognize the slow development. It’s more convenient to find fault with other people for mumbling, or to turn up the TV volume a bit louder, than to admit that you may possibly have hearing loss.
As a result, the signs can be elusive. You have to understand what to watch for, and although it’s convenient to disavow that you have hearing loss, you should be truthful with yourself about the warning signs.
Here are the top 10 to watch out for. If you detect the presence of any, it may be time to schedule a hearing test.
- You experience ringing in the ears – this might be an indicator of permanent hearing injury. Hearing aids can not only enable you to hear better, but they may additionally be able to relieve the ringing in your ears.
- You can’t hear normal household sounds – hearing loss can make it hard to hear the doorbell, the phone ringing, or another person calling your name from another room.
- You have difficulty understanding TV dialogue – speech is generally much more difficult to hear than other kinds of sound. This frequently shows itself as trouble following movie or television show plots.
- You have your phone, television, or radio at maximum volume – if you can hear the TV, phone, or radio much better than you can hear face-to-face conversations, check the volume settings on your technology. You might have these devices set at excessive volumes while at the same time believing that everyone else speaks too quietly.
- You ask people to repeat themselves regularly – you realize that you say “what?” a lot, or that you need to ask people to repeat themselves when you’re not facing them.
- You often misunderstand what people are saying – consonants are higher-pitched, and therefore more difficult to hear, than the lower-pitched vowels. Seeing as consonants communicate most of the meaning in a sentence, speech comprehension suffers.
- You have difficulty hearing all the words in a discussion – particular sounds and letters are more challenging to hear than others. Consequently, you can hear the majority of the words in a sentence, but that you have to many times try to fill in the blanks.
- You have trouble hearing when your back is to the speaker – you may be dependent on lip reading, nonverbal communication, and other hints to meaning significantly more than you realize. When you’re not looking at the speaker, and can’t use these hints, you may have difficulty comprehending speech.
- You have a hard time hearing with a great deal of background noise – as hearing loss becomes more serious, contesting noise becomes more of a challenge. You may manage to hear speech in quiet settings, but it becomes increasingly difficult to follow discussions in a noisy setting like a restaurant.
- People say that you shout or have the TV volume too loud – people may notice that you have the television volume too loud or that you have the proclivity to yell. It doesn’t seem this way to you because you’re compensating for your hearing loss.
Do you have one or more of the top 10 warning signs of hearing loss? If yes, set up your hearing test today, and take the steps to start living an improved, more productive, and healthier life.
