Hearing loss isn’t simply about volume, it’s also about pitch. If it’s hard to understand the speech of a child or a woman, but you can still, mostly understand the men in the room, you could have some amount of high-frequency hearing loss. You’re not alone…this is the most common type of hearing loss.
high-frequency Hearing Loss Symptoms
With high-frequency hearing loss, you may still be able to register the volume of a woman’s voice or a child’s voice, but consonant sounds that make conversations easy to understand, get muddled. Normally the hardest to differentiate are consonant sounds like ch, th, t, soft s, c, sh, k, f, and h. Even though a woman or a child is not mumbling, it might sound that way. Losing the ability to differentiate these sounds makes it very difficult to understand a child’s joke or your sister’s question about dinner plans. This can cause frustration, depression and social isolation from your circle of family and friends.
People who have high-frequency hearing loss also don’t hear other sounds that are within the high-frequency range (2000 Hz and higher). This includes high musical notes, birds chirping, and squeaks or sirens. Even at low volumes a man’s voice, thunder, and bass musical notes, may be fairly easy to discern.
Reasons For High-Frequency Hearing Loss
As the most typical type of hearing loss, high-frequency hearing loss can sneak up on people as they get older, often imperceptibly in the beginning. high-frequency hearing loss can be induced by other things besides aging like particular medical conditions like cardiovascular disease, excessive noise exposure, and several medications.
These situations all cause damage to the little, hair-like sensory cells inside the cochlea. It’s these tiny cells that pick up sound input and deliver it to the brain for processing. The high-frequency sensory cells are more sensitive to damage than the low-frequency sensory cells, which is why the higher-pitched sounds are usually the first to be difficult to comprehend.
How to Prevent High-Frequency Hearing Loss
You can do several things to slow or stop the progression of high-frequency hearing loss despite the fact that you can’t stop your ears from growing older. Including these:
- Quieter things are better. Pick the quietest product by examining the noise rating of the appliances. And don’t be scared to ask the restaurant manager to turn down the music if it’s difficult to hear your dinner companions.
- In noisy situations, put in hearing protection.A certain indication that your ears could be getting damaged is if you have to shout to be heard in a loud environment. Heavy traffic, motorcycles revving, power tools running, the loud stereo systems at movie theaters or rock concerts are all examples of times when popping in the ear-protection is a good idea. Noise canceling headphone might not fit inside your pocket, but they can be the best option in certain situations.
- Taking good care of your overall health. Your hearing can be injured by smoking. Poor health, poor nutrition, or not enough exercise can also injure your hearing. Preserve your hearing by taking care of your general health.
- Never using a swab (or other small objects) to get rid of ear wax. This can jam old ear wax into your ear canal and blunt your ability to hear. Carefully wash out excessive earwax with a washcloth after you shower, or ask your hearing professional about other ear irrigation techniques for eliminating earwax without injuring your hearing.
- Ask your doctor about medications you take. high-frequency hearing loss can be triggered by at least 200 different kinds of medications. Even too much aspirin can injure your hearing. consult your doctor to see if there are choices less likely to injure your hearing. Stay in close contact with your hearing health care provider if you can’t avoid using a particular medication. Additional hearing loss can be prevented by treatment.
high-frequency Hearing Loss Treatment
Hearing aids are currently the most effective strategy for dealing with high-frequency hearing loss. And there are many designs to choose from because this is the most common kind of hearing loss. So that they are clearer to the user, hearing aids can augment high pitched sounds. You can directly address your level and degree of hearing loss by having your hearing care professional fine-tune your hearing aid to improve your ability to hear sounds at the correct level. Many hearing aids can be manipulated by your phone and come with directional microphones for fine-tuning in circumstances like business meetings, restaurant dinners, talking on the phone or listening to children.
If you suspect that you may be dealing with high-frequency hearing loss, make an appointment for a hearing test. If you want to increase your capacity to hear your grandchild’s precious one-liner, odds are there are individually tailored solutions for you.