As we get older, we slowly start to lose our hearing. Treatment can help your hearing, but there is no cure for the majority of hearing loss. You also may inherit hearing loss from genetics, overexposure to loud noises, head injuries, and more. You can help prevent some causes of hearing loss by protecting your ears and avoiding excessive noise or injury. If you start to feel like you’re losing your hearing more and more, follow these steps to help determine if a hearing aid is right for you:
Take a Hearing Test
If you’re unsure if you need hearing aids, you can take a hearing test to help determine your quality of hearing. Schedule an appointment with your ENT doctor to have an audible hearing test. You can also take an online hearing test like this one here. It’s not easy to determine on your own how bad is too bad. Some people can live easily with mild hearing loss, and wouldn’t necessarily realize off-hand that they’re having issues hearing without taking a hearing test. Sometimes it’s not the difference between hearing and not hearing, but the slight difference between just hearing and hearing and understanding clearly.
Ask Close Relatives & Friends
Does your significant other complain that you don’t understand or miss pieces of information they’ve told you? Do you catch yourself asking others to repeat themselves over again? It’s helpful to get an opinion from a close friend or significant other. It’s easy to be self-conscious and think that you don’t hear words or context often -- but it is normal to miss words on occasion. It can be beneficial to know from a second-party if they feel as if you are missing information or not hearing clearly on a consistent, more-than-normal basis. They can also help you judge based on your surroundings, for example, do they find that you listen to the TV much louder than needed? Have they noticed that you don’t hear the doorbell easily? Use your friends and relatives for support and feedback.
Group Conversations
One other way to realize you may need a hearing aid has to deal with that difference between just hearing and hearing and understanding clearly. Do you find that you have difficulty talking in group settings? And is it difficult for you to hear one speaker who is talking with you when there is a lot of background noise? These can be signs that you are experiencing hearing loss. It’s not that you can’t hear any sound at all, it’s the ability to understand and comprehend the information delivered to you in an everyday setting. If you are finding that you’re having issues hearing in larger group settings, it may be helpful to schedule an appointment with your ENT doctor.
If you’re concerned about your hearing, set up an appointment with your Orlando ear nose throat doctor at Florida ENT today! Offices serving Orlando and Kissimmee.
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