Signs of Hearing Loss
Common signs of hearing loss include: Turning the TV up, asking others to repeat what they’ve said, saying “what” or “huh” a lot, and believing that everyone mumbles and needs lessons in enunciation. You probably have friends or family members who have shared frustrations with the above signs of hearing loss and may or may not agree that they have a problem. But do you know the less common signs of hearing loss?
Other signs of hearing loss can include: Getting lost in a conversation, where you feel everyone is talking to fast and you can’t keep up. Having trouble remembering conversations, even though your loved one insists you had the conversation. Laughing when everyone else laughs, but not knowing what was funny. Turning down invitations to parties and group functions because it’ll be too loud or too tiring to go. Probably the most common sign of hearing loss is the dreaded phrase, “I hear you, but I can’t understand what you’re saying”.
All of the above are signs are symptoms of hearing loss, there are more, don’t worry we won’t go through them all. Here are some important things to know about hearing loss. Your loved one probably isn’t purposefully ignoring you, or forgetting what you said, but rather the brain refuses to remember. Our ears are simply a detection system they do not interpret our world and the sounds we hear; our brains do. The problem lies with past experiences.
The majority of our lives we have “normal” hearing, someone says something, it’s easy to hear, so we understand it. Or, we can’t hear it, so we turn up the volume and POOF! like magic we can understand everything perfectly. We become so accustomed to “more volume = better hearing”, that we don’t even realize how complicated hearing truly is.
Sound has to travel through the structures of the outer, middle, and inner ear to stimulate the sensory cells of the organ of hearing (the cochlea), which sends the signal via the auditory nerve, to the brain where it is processed and assigned meaning. We have thousands sensory cells, and we need each and everyone of them, to hear “normally”. Think of the cochlea like a piano. A piano has 88 keys, which at it’s most basic are assigned a pitch, but together, played in combination, with all 88 keys we have misty eye inducing, beautiful music, a deep soulful experience.
Now, play your favorite music piece, open the equalizer, and remove all the treble (go ahead I’ll wait). Sounds awful doesn’t it? Removing the treble is very similar to how most people experience mild hearing loss. If you, reduce the mid frequencies the sound actually becomes difficult to identify. When hearing loss occurs we reduce the number of keys on the piano of our ear, the more we lose the harder it is to keep up with the conversation, and the less likely we understand others. Can we still hear the music? Yes, but it’s not the same experience it was before the loss.
The signs of hearing loss have a wide range. If you have any concerns, schedule your hearing evaluation today. We know early treatment, results in better outcomes for hearing long term.
P.S. - Stay tuned for my “Normal isn’t Normal” post!
