Knowing when you require some medical advice is normally rather easy. You know you need to go to the doctor right away if you break your leg, for example. You might need a splint or a cast or supportive device, but the thing is that you’re unlikely to try “toughing it out”. If you want your bones to mend correctly, you need to get them treated as soon as possible.
It isn’t always that obvious in terms of hearing aids, though. Hearing loss usually advances really gradually over time. That means it isn’t always simple to know when you might need to begin wearing hearing aids or to put off finding treatment you know could be beneficial.
So watching out for indications that your hearing is going is a good plan. If you observe any, it might be time to talk to us about your first pair of hearing aids.
Hearing loss and hearing aids
Hearing aids are the primary form of treatment for hearing loss. But everyone who has some degree of hearing loss won’t necessarily need hearing aids. In cases where patients have very mild hearing loss, hearing aids won’t always be beneficial. Because of this, we may want you to wait before beginning to use them. It’s also feasible that we could instruct you to only wear your hearing aids when you’re in particular situations.
Essentially, the threshold for requiring hearing aids is not always a diagnosis of hearing loss.
However, hearing aids will be the ideal answer in many circumstances. Because hearing loss can be a sneaky and gradual condition, many individuals don’t receive a diagnosis until there’s been significant damage. Getting your hearing tested regularly is the key to catching hearing loss early and possibly mitigating the need for hearing aids.
And if that’s the situation, you’re most likely thinking: how can I tell if I require hearing aids?
Signs you need a hearing aid
Immediate communication issues can be the consequence of hearing loss. The interesting thing, though, is that you don’t always realize that those communication difficulties are the result of hearing loss. So, when is it time for a hearing aid?
Watch out for these indicators:
- You can’t understand people on the phone: Voices usually sound a little flat on even high-quality phone speakers. If you have hearing loss, this can make it even more difficult to understand conversations. It can be extremely difficult to hear voices as an outcome of the loss of these frequencies.
- You listen to the radio or TV at high volumes: If you’re always turning up the volume on your television or radio or smartphone, it may be because of hearing loss. This is particularly true if you keep moving that volume knob higher (and even more especially true if the people around you complain about how loud your media is).
- When you’re in noisy locations, you have a difficult time following conversations: When people ask, “What are the signs of hearing loss?”, this one is almost always mentioned. If you have a hard time hearing conversations in noisy places, that’s usually a sure sign that you have hearing loss. That’s because your brain has trouble filling in the missing information that you lose when you have hearing impairment. A lot of conversations get muddled as a result.
- When people speak, you can’t always understand what they said: Many people feel like the total volume of life is fine so they never consider that they might have hearing loss. But hearing loss is funny, it tends to impact specific frequencies before others. Which means that the vast majority of sounds may seem ordinary but things in the high frequencies (such as particular vowels) will be distorted. This could cause you to have a tough time understanding what people are saying.
So what should you do?
Clearly, you know precisely what you have to do when you break a bone! But what do you do when you start to experience the symptoms of hearing loss? What level of hearing loss requires hearing aids? Well, that’s hard to answer, but when you begin noticing these symptoms, it’s a good idea to schedule an appointment with us. We’ll be able to evaluate the health of your hearing and determine just how serious your hearing loss may or may not be.
A hearing test will also help you get the optimal hearing aids for your needs if you do indeed need hearing aids. Then you will be able to get back to enjoying good conversations with your friends and loved ones and doing the things you love.
Give us a call to schedule your hearing test, we can help you recognize if you’re suffering from hearing loss.