Ever found it challenging to follow conversations at parties? Asking your friends to repeat themselves more often? You’re not alone! Millions of individuals have difficulty with hearing loss and don’t know how and when it changes to get help. If you are questioning about your hearing, it is time to get hearing aids.
Early Indicators of Hearing Loss
- Having a hard time listening in distracting places
When public social gatherings find you nodding your head without completely comprehending the words being spoken, this is a symptom that your ear health needs to be addressed. People will tend to shift simply and subconsciously to quieter places or need to rely on simply “watching” lip/sync to keep up.
- Needing to ask people to repeat themselves regularly
When using questions like “What?” or “Can you say that again?” becomes a habit, this is more than an annoyance. Family and friends often make jokes about “selective hearing,” but the reality is that your ears are simply not up for the task.
- Not hearing your phone ring or your doorbell ding
Let’s not overlook the consistently important auditory signals the ringing of your phone, the microwave beeping, the doorbell chime, etc. If you often miss these signals, it is time to turn your attention to your hearing loss.
In addition to the frustration this may cause, it can also have an effect on safety when you don’t hear alarms or signals above the noise.
Physical and Social Indicators
- Ringing/buzzing in your ears
It is quite common to experience persistent ringing (tinnitus) related to hearing loss. It may present as whistling, buzzing, or humming. Even with different intensities, this is usually the body’s way of indicating a change in hearing.
- Feeling drained after a social event
It should not take everything you have to carry on a conversation. If you feel mentally drained after spending time with others, it may be because your brain is churning to fill in the missing words you could not hear clearly.
- Avoiding conversations in groups of people
Do you find yourself skipping out on dinners or avoiding crowded places or increasingly silently withdrawing from conversation? This gradual retreat is likely one of the most undervalued but clearest indications of hearing loss.
Daily Life Communication Barriers
- Having trouble with high-frequency sounds
It can be hard to catch children’s voices, birds singing, or even certain consonants (“s,” “f,” “th”) due to high-frequency hearing loss. However, some high-frequency hearing loss can be experienced over time, slowly making conversations, sometimes difficult, but usually avoidable.
- Mixing up words that sound similar
If people are having a good laugh or get confused because your answers don’t match the question, it may be because you are mishearing some words that sound similar. Your brain guesses what it thinks was said, but it doesn’t always get it right.
- Relying on lip reading
You may not even realise it; but you are starting to rely on lip and facial expression cues. Although this can often help to fill in the blanks, it is an identified sign that your ears may not be supplying you with the whole story.
Hearing isn’t just an important part of your social world… it is an important part of your work world as well.
How Hearing Loss Impacts Work
- Missing key points during meetings: You might have nodded your head while picking up only parts of the whole meeting.
- Missing important points during phone calls: Without visual cues, it can become stressful and unclear on calls.
- Missing information in casual chats with co-workers: Casual conversations often contain critical information that you may have missed altogether. Struggling to join casual conversations can threaten confidence, as well as career progression.
What’s the Next Step? Hearing Evaluation
It is best to schedule a professional hearing evaluation with your local audiologist to determine if hearing aids are appropriate. An online questionnaire might give you some indication, but only an audiologist will be able to evaluate your hearing thresholds for a range of pitches and sounds at various intensities.
During an appointment, the specialist will:
- Look in your ears
- Review your health history
- Conduct tests like:
- Audiogram – A measure of how well you are able to hear different sounds.
- Speech tests – A measure of how well you understand spoken words.
This will give you a clearer idea about if a hearing aid is a good option for you, or other treatments.
Choosing Your Hearing Aids
Hearing aids are not created equally. Your lifestyle matters:
- Someone who dines in noisy restaurants will need different features than someone who primarily watches television at home.
- Someone who works in a profession with listening challenges (like a teacher or healthcare worker) will face different challenges than a retiree.
Be sure to be honest with your audiologist when talking about the places you struggle with the most. You will be much happier with a solution that fits your daily life and not a generalized device.
How to Make the Best Use of Your Hearing Aids
- Give yourself time to “fit in”
Initially, everyday sounds may seem louder or sharper. It takes a while for your brain to adapt give it a few weeks; you will be amazed how much clarity you get back with a little patience.
- Care for your devices
Hearing aids live in a challenging environment your ears. You need to make sure you clean them regularly, replace batteries, recharge them, and keep them dry. The better you care for your aids, the longer they will last and work correctly.
- Follow-up appointments
Your audiologist will most likely request that you follow up after your initial week, after your first month, and then again at three months to specifically fine-tune your hearing aids so you ideally achieve the desired outcome with your hearing aids.
- Join a support group
There are a variety of support groups to become a part of, which could be comforting to connect with others who are dealing with hearing aids also. Hearing aid users will often share tips, learn from experiences, and have an emotional and physical support system to draw from in your journey.
Conclusion
As you can see, hearing loss does not happen suddenly, it bides its time. However, there are signs: having to repeat things, struggling to hear in noisy situations, missing important sounds, and even avoiding social situations altogether.
But the good news is that hearing aids today are smaller, more powerful, and modifiable to your specific lifestyle requests. Over time, with the right help from a good audiologist, it is realistic to reconnect to conversations, restore confidence in your voice, and never again miss out on moments of your life.
Hearing is your connection to the world do not wait to lose it before protecting it.
