Top 10 Warning Signs of Hearing Loss

You might think that hearing loss would be simple to spot, but it’s not as easy to notice as you may think.

To begin with, many people with hearing loss have challenges only with certain sounds and in specified scenarios. So, if you can hear normally on some occasions, you’ll have the tendency to pin the blame on other factors or other people for the instances that you do have a tough time hearing.

Second, hearing loss arises slowly and gradually over time, so it’s difficult to detect the slow development. It’s more convenient to blame other people for mumbling, or to turn up the TV volume a little higher, than to admit that you may have hearing loss.

So, the signs can be elusive. You need to understand what to watch for, and although it’s easy to reject that you have hearing loss, you should be honest with yourself about the warning signs.

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

1. You experience ringing or buzzing in the ears – this might be a sign 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 are not able to hear regular household sounds – hearing loss can make it difficult to hear the doorbell, the telephone ringing, or somebody shouting your name from another room.
3. You have trouble comprehending TV dialogue – speech is usually more challenging to hear than other kinds of sound. This frequently manifests itself as trouble following movie or television show plots.
4. You have your cellphone, television, or radio at max volume – if you can hear the TV, phone, or radio better than you can hear personal conversations, check the volume settings on your technology. You may have these gadgets set at excessive volumes while simultaneously believing that everyone else talks too softly.
5. You ask people to repeat themselves regularly – you detect that you say “what?” a lot, or that you need to ask people to repeat themselves when you’re not facing them.
6. You often misinterpret what people are saying – consonants are higher-pitched, and therefore much more difficult to hear, than vowels. Seeing as consonants impart the majority of the meaning in a sentence, speech comprehension suffers.
7. You have difficulty hearing all the words in a conversation – specific sounds and letters are more challenging to hear than others. What this means is you can hear the majority of the words in a sentence, but that you have to many times try to fill in the blanks.
8. You have trouble hearing when your back is to the speaker – you may depend on lip reading, nonverbal communication, and other hints 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 lots of background noise – as hearing loss gets to be more serious, contending noise becomes more of a challenge. You might be able to hear speech in quiet settings, but it becomes increasingly difficult to follow conversations in a loud setting like a restaurant.
10. People say that you shout or have the TV volume too loud – people may remark that you have the TV volume too loud or that you have the habit to yell. It doesn’t seem 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 you do, book your hearing test today, and take the steps to begin living a better, more productive, and healthier life.