Quick Read
Turning up the volume on the television or radio, finding that you don’t register higher voices, feeling like the people around you are always mumbling.
Something we see frequently at The Hearing Center are patients coming in for the first time who are unaware of how much their hearing has changed. Sometimes they might not believe they have any hearing loss at all, and are only coming in because their partner or family member asked them to. This isn’t really surprising when you consider both the gradual nature of hearing loss, and our amazing ability to compensate using our other senses as our hearing declines. If you’re wondering whether you actually have hearing loss, here are a few things you might consider:
- Are you turning up the TV or radio louder than you used to? Do your family members, roommates, or neighbors comment on it? Do you find yourself explaining it by saying that the background music on a show is too loud to hear people talking, or that the actors are mumbling?
- Has everyone forgotten how to enunciate? Once again, due to the fact that hearing loss is generally a gradual process, we often feel that it’s the world around us, rather than our own senses, which are changing. Certain consonant sounds become more difficult to accurately hear when we have hearing loss, and so it can seem like everyone around you is mumbling. This can lead to awkward social interactions (like thinking someone said something different from what they actually said) and/ or a pattern of asking people to repeat themselves… which may even become a subconscious habit over time.
- Are you missing the high notes? The ability to hear higher pitched sounds is often one of the first things to change when we start to lose some hearing. You may find that you understand your brother perfectly well, but your higher-pitched sister’s voice, or that of small children, is much more difficult. Other sounds you may be missing include beeping (seat belt notifications, car blinker ticking, microwave or other appliance “finished” beeps) and the higher notes in music you once enjoyed.
Bear in mind that our brains are amazingly adaptive, so many of us learn to compensate for loss of hearing by using other systems. For example, we may subconsciously begin to focus more on people’s faces or mouths when they are speaking, to make up for not being able to hear their words as well. Or we may start to forego social situations we used to enjoy when we find we don’t enjoy them as much anymore…because we can’t actually hear what’s going on. If you’re worried that you may have some hearing loss, it’s worth your while to check in with an audiologist and find out for sure. You may be missing out on some of the more enjoyable parts of your life without even realizing it, and we can help bring them back.