Recognizing when you need some medical advice is normally fairly easy. When you break your leg, for example, 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. At least, not for very long (particularly if you want your bones to mend themselves correctly).
It’s not always that clear cut in terms of hearing aids, though. Hearing loss is normally a developing condition. This means knowing when to get treatment for hearing loss can be difficult.
So watching out for indications that your hearing is going is a good plan. If you detect any, it might be time to consult us about your first pair of hearing aids.
Hearing loss and hearing aids
Hearing aids are the main method 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 mild hearing loss, hearing aids won’t always be practical. Because of this, we may want you to wait before beginning to use them. It’s also feasible that we could direct you to only use your hearing aids when you’re in certain situations.
In other words, the threshold for requiring hearing aids is not always a hearing loss diagnosis.
But in many cases hearing aids will be the best answer. Because hearing loss can be a sneaky and gradual condition, lots of people don’t receive a diagnosis until there’s been significant damage. But if you come in to see us regularly, you may be able to catch your hearing loss early, and, because of this, you may not require hearing aids right away.
And if that’s the case, you’re probably thinking: how can I tell if I require hearing aids?
Indications you need a hearing aid
Instant communication issues can be the consequence of hearing loss. But lots of times you don’t even recognize that hearing loss is the cause of those communication problems. So, at what stage will a hearing aid help?
Here are some of the typical signs you should look out for:
- You can’t understand people on the phone: Voices usually sound a bit flat on even high-quality phone speakers. If you have hearing loss, this can make it even more challenging to understand conversations. It can be very challenging to hear voices as a result of the loss of these frequencies.
- You have problems making out what people are saying: Many people feel like the overall volume of life is fine so they never consider that they may have hearing loss. But the thing about hearing loss is that certain frequencies of sound usually go before others. Because of this, things like vowel sounds in the higher pitches can sound distorted. Consequently, you may have a hard time understanding what people are saying to you.
- The volume on your devices is becoming 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 particularly true.
- You have a hard time following conversations in noisy places: This is probably one of the most common symptoms of hearing loss. If you have difficulty hearing conversations in noisy places, that’s usually a sure sign that you have hearing loss. That’s because your brain has difficulty filling in the missing information that gets lost with hearing impairment. As a result, there’s a lot of muffled conversations.
So how should you deal with it?
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 degree of hearing loss requires hearing aids? That isn’t a very easy answer but you should schedule an appointment with us for a hearing assessment if you begin to notice any hearing loss symptoms. We will be able to inform you about how serious your hearing loss is.
And if you do wind up needing hearing aids, a hearing test will help identify the best device for your hearing needs. This means you’ll be able to get back to communicating with your friends and loved ones, you’ll understand your grandkids when they give you a call, your co-workers at your morning meeting, and your friends at the pub.
Call us to schedule your hearing test, we can help you understand if you’re suffering from hearing loss.