It’s not as if you simply wake up one day, and your hearing is gone. Hearing loss happens in degrees for most people, especially when it comes to aging. Age-related hearing loss affects about one in three people in this country. Many of them are over the age of 75 before they recognize a change. You may not detect the trouble immediately even though some signs show up earlier.
Early hearing loss has gradual and subtle symptoms. Recognizing them as soon as possible is essential to slow down the progression of hearing loss or other health problems related to hearing loss. You can’t recognize the signs if you don’t know what they are, though. Consider these eight barely noticeable signs that you may have hearing loss.
1. Ringing in The Ears
This is a symptom that people have a tendency to ignore if it doesn’t become too disruptive and it’s actually not that subtle. Tinnitus, the medical name for the ringing, is a common symptom of hearing loss.
The ringing can be intermittent and only act up when triggered. Maybe the ringing only happens when your tired or when you first get up for instance.
Tinnitus is a sign that something else is going on with your body so it should never be neglected. It could be hearing loss, but it might also be a sign of high blood pressure, circulatory problems or trauma. You won’t know for certain until you see your doctor, though.
2. You Dread Talking on The Phone
It’s not hard to make excuses for phone problems like:
- It’s a new phone, and I’m just not used to it yet.
- I have an out dated phone.
- I dropped my phone in water or on the ground.
Consider why you dislike talking on our phone. If you have the volume all the way up and can’t understand what is being said, let a friend test the phone for you. If you can’t hear the conversation but they can then you have a hearing problem.
3. It Seems As if Everyone Mumbles Now
It used to be only the kids, but recently, the lady on the TV news, your neighbor, and your spouse all have taken to muttering when they talk to you. Could it really be possible that suddenly everyone in your life has poor enunciation.
It’s much more probable that you may not be hearing words in the same way. One of the first signs that your hearing is changing is when talking sounds like mumbling and consonants like “S” and “T” drop off.
4. What?
You might not even recognize that you can’t hear conversations any more until someone points out that you say “What? a lot. Usually, the first to notice you have hearing loss are people you see every day like coworkers or family members. If someone says something about it, pay attention.
5. Some People You Hear Fine But Others Not so Much
Maybe when you are having a chat with the neighbor everything sounds okay but when his wife joins in you can’t understand a word. You can have sensorineural hearing loss, or injury to the nerves that send electrical signals to the brain, and this is a normal symptom.
Her voice is a higher pitch, and that’s why it isn’t as clear. You may have the same issue with your grandchild or daughter. Even when you are in common situations, something as basic as trying to hear the sound of an alarm clock ar a microwave can make things difficult. Those tones are also high pitched.
6. Going Out Used to be a Lot More Fun
Again, there are those mumbling people, and that’s not fun. Also, it’s much harder to understand what people are saying when you are in a noisy place. It becomes impossible to hear anything when you are at dinner and people start conversing around you or the AC pops on.
7. You Never Used to Feel This Tired
Battling to comprehend words is exhausting. Your brain has to work overtime to manage what it does hear, so you are more exhausted than usual. Your other senses may also undergo changes. If your brain is utilizing 110 percent of its time and energy to understand words, what’s left for your eyesight or balance? If your last eye test was okay, then the next thing to get checked is your ears.
8. You Can’t Hear The TV
Instead of blaming the service provider when you need to keep cranking the TV up, think about getting a hearing exam. When you have loss of hearing it can be difficult to follow dialog. There is the background music confusing things, for instance. What about the other sounds in the room like the AC or the ceiling fan? Your hearing is probably beginning to fail if you need to keep turning the volume up.
A professional hearing exam will tell you for sure and that’s the good news. Hearing aids should get things back to normal if it turns out that you have a hearing problem.