Knowing when you require some medical advice is usually fairly easy. When you break your leg, for example, you know you should go to the doctor (or the emergency room, depending on the situation). You may need a splint or a cast or supportive device, but the thing is that you’re not likely to try “toughing it out”. If you want your bones to mend correctly, you need to get them taken care of as soon as you can.
But in terms of hearing aids, it isn’t always so simple to identify when it’s time to get some assistance. Hearing loss usually progresses very gradually over time. That means it isn’t always simple to know when you may need to begin using hearing aids or to delay finding treatment you know could be helpful.
That’s why it’s a good plan to watch out for some distinct signposts that you may be losing your ability to communicate. If you notice any, it may be time to consult us about your first pair of hearing aids.
Hearing aids and hearing loss
Hearing aids are the main method of treatment for hearing loss. But that doesn’t mean everyone who has hearing loss will immediately need a set of hearing aids. In situations where patients have very slight hearing loss, hearing aids won’t always be helpful. Consequently, we may want you to wait before beginning to use them. It’s also feasible that we could advise you to only use your hearing aids when you’re in specific situations.
Essentially, the threshold for requiring hearing aids isn’t always a hearing loss diagnosis.
But in many situations hearing aids will be the best solution. Many people won’t have their hearing loss diagnosed until it becomes more severe because hearing loss advances slowly and often goes unnoticed for a while. But if you come in to see us regularly, you may be able to catch your hearing loss early, and, as a result, you may not require hearing aids immediately.
And if that’s the situation, you’re most likely thinking: how can I tell if I require hearing aids?
You need hearing aids if you detect these signs
Immediate communication challenges can be the result of hearing loss. But lots of times you don’t even recognize that hearing loss is the reason for those communication issues. So, when is it time for a hearing aid?
Watch out for these signs:
- When you’re in very loud locations, you have a tough time following conversations: This is probably one of the most common symptoms of hearing loss. One of the surest signs of hearing loss is that you have difficulty following conversations in loud settings, like bars or restaurants. That’s because your brain has trouble filling in the missing information that gets lost with hearing impairment. Lots of conversations get muddled as a result.
- You listen to the radio or TV at really loud volumes: Hearing loss could be the culprit if you continually need to crank the volume of your devices up. If you find people around you complaining about the loud volume of your devices, this is particularly true.
- When people speak, you can’t always understand what they said: Many people feel like the overall volume of life is fine so they never consider that they might have hearing loss. But hearing loss is funny, it tends to impact particular frequencies before others. Because of this, things like vowel sounds in the higher pitches can sound distorted. As a result, you may have a difficult time making out what people are saying to you.
- You can’t understand people on the phone: Voices typically sound a little flat on even high-quality phone speakers. That can make it tough to understand, particularly if you have hearing loss. It can be very challenging to hear voices as an outcome of the loss of these frequencies.
So what should you do?
Obviously, you know exactly what you have to do when you break a bone! But what about when you detect these signs that you may need a hearing aid? How severe does hearing loss have to be to require a hearing aid? That’s not a really easy answer but you should make an appointment with us for a hearing assessment if you begin to detect any hearing loss symptoms. We will be able to inform you about how serious your hearing loss is.
A hearing evaluation will also help you get the most effective hearing aids for your requirements if you do indeed need hearing aids. Then you will be able to get back to taking pleasure in good conversations with your friends and loved ones and doing the things you love.
Call us for a hearing test so we can help you improve your quality of life.