Top 10 Warning Signs of Hearing Loss

You would think that hearing loss should be obvious to spot, but it’s not as straightforward to notice as you may believe.

First, most people with hearing loss have challenges only with certain sounds and in specific situations. Consequently, if you can hear normally on some occasions, you’ll be inclined to blame other factors or other people for the occasions you do have a tough time hearing.

Second, hearing loss comes about slowly over the years, so it’s challenging to detect the slow progression. It’s simpler and easier to blame it on other people for mumbling, or to turn up the TV volume a bit higher, than to admit that you might have hearing loss.

As a result, the signs and symptoms can be subtle. You need to understand what to watch out for, and although it’s easy to disavow that you have hearing loss, you should be honest with yourself about the warning signs.

Here are the top 10 to watch out for. If you detect the presence of any, it may be time to organize a hearing test.

1. You experience ringing or buzzing in the ears – this might be indicative of permanent hearing injury. Hearing aids can not only help you hear better, but they may additionally be able to minimize the ringing in your ears.
2. You can’t hear normal household sounds – hearing loss can make it difficult to hear the doorbell, the telephone ringing, or a friend shouting your name from another room.
3. You have difficulty comprehending TV dialogue – speech is usually a lot more difficult to hear than other types of sound. This often manifests itself as trouble following movie or television show plots.
4. You have your cellphone, TV, or radio at maximum volume – if you can hear the television, phone, or radio much better than you can hear personal conversations, check the volume settings on your technology. You may have these gadgets set at elevated volumes while at the same time thinking that everyone else talks too quietly.
5. You request that people repeat themselves often – you notice that you say “what?” a lot, or that you need to ask people to repeat themselves when you’re not facing them.
6. You frequently misunderstand what people are saying – consonants are higher-pitched, and therefore more difficult to hear, than vowels. Since consonants communicate the majority of the meaning in a sentence, speech comprehension suffers.
7. You have difficulty hearing all the words in a conversation – select sounds and letters are more difficult to hear than others. Consequently, you can hear the majority of the words in a sentence, but that you have to more often than not try to fill in the blanks.
8. You have difficulty hearing when your back is to the speaker – you may be dependent on lip reading, body gestures, and other cues to meaning much more than you think. When you’re not facing the speaker, and can’t use these cues, you may have difficulty comprehending speech.
9. You have a hard time hearing with a great deal of background noise – as hearing loss gets to be more serious, contesting noise becomes more of a challenge. You may be able to hear speech in tranquil settings, but it becomes progressively difficult to follow conversations in a noisy setting like a restaurant.
10. People complain that you shout or have the TV volume too loud – people may remark that you have the television volume too loud or that you have the proclivity to shout. It doesn’t appear to be this way to you because you’re compensating for your hearing loss.

Do you have one or more of the top 10 warning signs of hearing loss? If so, set up your hearing test today, and take the steps to start living a better, more productive, and healthier life.