Your last family dinner was discouraging. It wasn’t because your family was having a hard time getting along. The problem was the noise, which was making it difficult to hear anything. So you weren’t able to have very much meaningful conversation with any of your family members. The whole experience was extremely aggravating. For the most part, you blame the acoustics. But you’re also willing to accept that your hearing might be starting to wane.
It isn’t typically advisable to attempt to self diagnose hearing loss because it generally isn’t possible. But there are a few early warning signs you should keep your eye on. If some of these warning signs appear, it’s most likely time to have your hearing tested.
Hearing Loss Has Some Early Warning Signs
Not every sign and symptom of hearing loss is obvious. But you might be experiencing some amount of hearing loss if you find yourself noticing some of these signs.
Here are some of the warning signs of hearing loss:
Someone makes you aware that you keep turning the volume up. Perhaps the volume on your phone keeps getting louder and louder. Maybe it’s your TV that’s at max volume. Usually, it’s a friend, neighbor, or a family member that makes you recognize the increasing volumes.
Phone calls suddenly seem muffled and hard to comprehend: People do a lot of texting nowadays, so you may not take as many phone calls as you used to. But if you’re having difficulty understanding the phone calls you do get (even with the volume turned all the way up), you may be dealing with another red flag for your hearing.
There’s a ringing in your ears: Ringing in your ears is called tinnitus (and, actually, tinnitus can be other sounds too: screeching, buzzing, humming, thumping, and so on). Tinnitus is frequently an early warning sign of hearing loss, but not always so if your ears are ringing, a hearing test is probably in order.
You notice that some sounds become intolerably loud. This early warning sign is less prevalent, but hyperacusis is common enough that you might find yourself encountering its symptoms. It can be an early sign of hearing loss if certain sounds seem really loud particularly if it lasts for an extended period of time.
You keep needing people to repeat themselves. This is especially true if you’re asking several people to slow down, repeat what they said, or talk louder. Sometimes, you may not even acknowledge how often this is happening and you may miss this warning sign.
High pitched sounds are hard to hear. Things like a whistling teapot or ringing doorbell sometimes go unnoticed for several minutes or more. Particular frequencies (frequently high pitched) will typically be the first to fade with early hearing loss.
Certain words seem harder to hear than others. When consonants become hard to differentiate this red flag should go up. The th- and sh- sounds are very commonly muffled. It can also often be the p- and t- sounds or the s- and f- sounds
You have a hard time following conversations in a noisy or crowded place. This is exactly what occurred during the “family dinner” example above, and it’s often an early sign of hearing problems.
It’s Time to Get a Hearing Examination
Regardless of how many of these early warning signs you might encounter, there’s really only one way to know, with confidence, whether your hearing is going bad: get your hearing tested.
Broadly speaking, even one of these early warning signs could be an indication that you’re developing some kind of hearing impairment. What level of hearing loss you may be dealing with can only be determined with a hearing examination. Then it will become more evident what has to be done about it.
This will make your next family get together a lot easier and more enjoyable.