Knowing when you need some medical advice is normally rather easy. When you break your leg, for instance, you know you should go to the doctor (or the emergency room, depending on the scenario). With scenarios like this, simply “toughing it out” isn’t a possibility. If you want your bones to heal properly, you need to get them taken care of as soon as you can.
It’s not always that obvious in terms of hearing aids, however. Hearing loss is normally a progressive condition. This means recognizing when to get treatment for hearing loss can be difficult.
That’s why it’s a good plan to watch out for some specific indicators that you may be losing your ability to communicate. It’s probably time to call us for a consultation if you do notice any.
Hearing aids and hearing loss
Hearing aids are the main method of treatment for hearing loss. But that doesn’t mean everybody who has hearing loss will instantly need a pair of hearing aids. Hearing aids won’t always be practical in cases of mild hearing loss. As a result, we might want you to wait before starting to use them. It’s also feasible that we could instruct you to only wear your hearing aids when you’re in specific situations.
This means that just because you’re diagnosed with hearing loss doesn’t mean you will necessarily require hearing aids.
However, hearing aids will be the best option in many cases. Many people won’t have their hearing loss diagnosed until it becomes more serious because hearing loss advances slowly and frequently goes unnoticed for a while. Getting your hearing examined regularly is the key to catching hearing loss early and possibly mitigating the need for hearing aids.
So how will you know if you have hearing loss?
Signs you need a hearing aid
Hearing loss is one of those conditions that can create immediate communication problems. The interesting thing, though, is that you don’t always understand that those communication difficulties are due to hearing loss. So, when is it time for a hearing aid?
Look out for these indicators:
- When you’re in very loud locations, you have a hard time following conversations: When people ask, “What are the signs of hearing loss?”, this one almost always comes up. If you have difficulty hearing conversations in noisy places, that’s often a sure sign that you have hearing loss. That’s because your brain has a hard time filling in the missing information that you lose when you have hearing impairment. Lots of conversations get muddled because of this.
- When people speak, you can’t always make out what they said: Many people don’t think they have hearing loss or need hearing aids because the total volume they perceive seems fine. But hearing loss is funny, it tends to affect specific frequencies before others. Which means that the vast majority of sounds may seem normal but things in the high frequencies (like particular vowels) will be distorted. This could cause you to have a tough time making out what people are saying.
- The volume on your devices is becoming very loud: Hearing loss could be the cause if you continuously need to turn the volume of your devices up. If you find people around you complaining about the high volume of your devices, this is particularly true.
- You can’t understand people on the phone: Voices typically sound a bit flat on even high-quality phone speakers. That can make it hard to understand, particularly if you have hearing loss. It can be very difficult to hear voices as a result of the loss of these frequencies.
So what should you do?
Obviously, you know exactly what you have to do when you break a bone! But what about when you experience these indications that you might need a hearing aid? What level of hearing loss requires hearing aids? That’s not a really easy answer but you should make an appointment with us for a hearing exam if you start to notice any hearing loss symptoms. We’ll be able to evaluate the health of your hearing and ascertain just how severe your hearing loss may or may not be.
And if you do wind up needing hearing aids, a hearing test will help identify the best device for your hearing needs. Then you will be able to get back to enjoying good conversations with your friends and family members and doing the things you love.
Call us for a hearing test so we can help you improve your quality of life.