In some cases, it’s easy to recognize when you need medical help. You know you need to go see a doctor right away if you break your leg, for instance. With scenarios like this, simply “toughing it out” isn’t an option. If you want your bones to mend 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 normally advances really slowly over time. This means it’s not always simple to know when you might need to begin wearing hearing aids or to put off finding treatment you know could be helpful.
So watching out for indications that your hearing may be going is a good idea. It’s likely time to call us for a consultation if you do detect any.
Hearing loss and hearing aids
Hearing aids are the primary form of treatment for hearing loss. But that doesn’t mean everyone who has hearing loss will immediately need a set of hearing aids. In situations where patients have very slight hearing loss, hearing aids won’t always be beneficial. We might want you to hold off on using hearing aids because of this. In addition, you might be instructed to wear hearing aids only in certain situations.
Essentially, the threshold for needing hearing aids isn’t always a hearing loss diagnosis.
But in many situations hearing aids will be the best answer. Because hearing loss can be a sneaky and slow condition, lots of 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 case, you’re most likely thinking: how can I tell if I require hearing aids?
You need hearing aids if you experience these signs
Instant communication problems can be the result of hearing loss. The funny thing, though, is that you don’t always comprehend that those communication issues are due to hearing loss. So, when is it time for a hearing aid?
Here are some of the common signs you should look out for:
- When you’re in noisy locations, you have a hard time following conversations: This is probably one of the most prevailing symptoms of hearing loss. 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 trouble filling in the missing information that gets lost with hearing impairment. As a result, there’s a lot of muffled conversations.
- Phone conversations sound muffled: Voices typically sound a little flat on even high-quality phone speakers. That can make it difficult to understand, especially if you have hearing loss. Again, specific frequencies are missing and the result is that it’s extremely hard to understand those voices.
- You have difficulty understanding what people are saying: Many individuals feel like the overall volume of life is fine so they never imagine that they may have hearing loss. But hearing loss is curious, it tends to affect certain frequencies before others. Which means that the great majority of sounds may seem normal but things in the high frequencies (such as certain vowels) will be distorted. As a result, you may have a tough time understanding what people are saying to you.
- The volume on your devices is getting very loud: Hearing loss could be the cause if you continuously need to crank the volume of your devices up. If you find individuals around you complaining about the loud volume of your devices, this is especially relevant.
So what can you do?
Obviously, you know precisely what you have to do when you break a bone! But what do you do when you begin to notice the symptoms of hearing loss? How bad does hearing loss need to be to call for a hearing aid? Well, that’s difficult to answer, but when you begin experiencing these signs, it’s a good idea to make 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 most effective hearing aids for your requirements if you do indeed need hearing aids. Then you will be able to get back to taking pleasure in good conversations with your friends and loved ones and doing the things you love.
Give us a call to schedule your hearing exam, we can help you understand if you’re suffering from hearing loss.
