According to one recent survey, nearly 30% of people have gone more than ten years without getting a hearing test. Sofia is one of those people. She goes to her yearly doctor’s appointments, she visits a dentist every six months, and she gets the oil changed in her car every 3000 miles. But she can’t remember the last time she took a hearing exam or underwent any type of accurate hearing evaluation.
Hearing exams are important for a wide variety of reasons, the most important of which is that it’s often difficult for you to discover the earliest signs of hearing loss without one. Knowing how frequently she should get a hearing exam will help Sofia keep her ears (and hearing) as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
How Often Each Year Should my Hearing Get Checked?
If the last time Sofia had a hearing examination was a decade ago, we could be alarmed. Or we might think it’s perfectly normal. Depending on Sophia’s age, reactions could vary. This is because hearing professionals have different guidelines based on age.
- If you are older than fifty: But if you’re over fifty, the suggestion is, you get a hearing test yearly. Hearing loss is more likely to affect your life as you grow older because noise damage begins to add up. Also, there are other health concerns that can impact your hearing.
- It’s normally recommended that you have a hearing exam around every three years. There’s no problem having your ears tested more often, of course! But once every three years is the bare minimum. You should certainly get examined more often if you spend a lot of time in a noisy setting. There’s no reason not to do it, it’s painless and simple.
As far as your hearing is concerned, more often is certainly better. The sooner you identify any problems, the more quickly you’ll be able to address whatever hearing loss that may have developed since your last hearing exam.
Signs You Should Get Your Hearing Checked
There are definitely other times besides your annual hearing test that you may want to make an appointment with your hearing professional. As an example, if you recognize signs of hearing loss. And in those situations, it’s usually a good plan to promptly get in touch with a hearing specialist and schedule a hearing test.
Some of the signs that might prompt you to get a hearing test could include:
- Having a very hard time comprehending people when talking on the phone, any phone.
- When you’re in a loud situation, you have trouble hearing conversations.
- Constantly asking people to repeat themselves or slow down during a conversation.
- Cranking your music to excessively high volumes (if your neighbors start complaining, that’s a good indication you should see a hearing specialist soon).
- It’s normal for loss of hearing in the high pitched register to fail first and because consonants are in a higher pitched register than vowels, they normally go first.
- Your hearing is dull like there is water in your ears.
When these warning signs start to add up, it’s a good sign that the perfect time to have a hearing exam is right now. The sooner you have your hearing examined, the sooner you’ll know what’s happening with your hearing.
What Are The Benefits of Hearing Testing?
Sophia may be late for her hearing exam for many reasons. Maybe she hasn’t thought about it. Maybe thinking about it is something she is just avoiding. But getting your hearing examined on the recommended schedule has tangible benefits.
And it will be simpler to identify hearing deviations in the future if you have your hearing tested by establishing a baseline reading even if it seems as if everything is normal. If you catch your loss of hearing before it becomes noticeable, you’ll be able to protect it better.
That’s exactly why Sophia has to go to her scheduled hearing appointments before any permanent injury happens. By detecting your hearing loss early, by getting your hearing examined when you should, you’ll be giving your ears their best chance of staying healthy. Thinking about the effects of hearing loss on your overall health, that’s essential.