Hearing loss is about pitch as much as volume. It’s conceivable you have some degree of high-frequency hearing loss if you can comprehend what the men in the room are saying but you can’t hear women and children. You’re not alone…this is the most common kind of hearing loss.
Warning Signs of High-Frequency Hearing Loss
With high-frequency hearing loss, consonant sounds that allow conversations to be understood, get muddled even though you might still be able to pick up on the volume of a woman or a child’s voice. Normally, consonant sounds like t, th, ch, soft c, s, sh, f, k, and h are the most difficult to pick out. So, it might sound like a woman or child is mumbling, even though they aren’t. Understanding a child’s joke or a family member’s question about dinner plans becomes very difficult because you have lost the ability to distinguish these sounds. Separation from friends and family, sadness, and frustration can be the result.
Other sounds within the high-frequency hearing loss range (2000 Hz) are lost to people who have this problem. This includes high musical notes, birds chirping, and squeaks or whistles. Even at low volumes a man’s voice, thunder, and bass musical notes, may be fairly easy to detect.
Reasons For High-Frequency Hearing Loss
Often imperceptible at first, high-frequency hearing loss, the most prevalent kind of hearing loss, can sneak up on you as you grow older. high-frequency hearing loss can be induced by other things besides aging such as specific medical disorders like cardiovascular disease, excessive noise exposure, and various medications.
These situations all harm to the little, hair-like sensory cells inside of the cochlea. Sound input is received by these little cells and sent to the brain for processing. The high-frequency sensory cells are more sensitive to injury than the low-frequency sensory cells, which is why the higher-pitched sounds are frequently the first to be difficult to understand.
high-frequency Hearing Loss, How to Avoid it
You can do several things to slow or stop the progression of high-frequency hearing loss even though you can’t stop your ears from getting older. Including these:
- When getting rid of earwax, never utilize a swab or any other small object. Your capacity to hear becomes blunted when you jam old earwax against your eardrum. A hot shower is usually enough o drain exes earwax but if this doesn’t work ask your hearing care professional for other methods of irrigating your ears.
- Quieter things are more ideal. Select the quietest product by examining the noise rating of the appliances. And don’t be afraid to ask the restaurant manager to turn the music down if it’s hard to hear your friends at dinner.
- In loud situations, put in hearing protection. If you need to shout to be heard in a loud setting, this is a certain sign the noise might damage your hearing. Heavy traffic, motorcycles revving, power tools running, the loud sound systems at movies or live music concerts are all good examples of instances when popping in the ear-protection is a smart idea. Noise canceling headphone might not fit inside your pocket, but they are the best choice in some scenarios.
- Your health is important so take care of it. Your hearing can be injured by smoking. Poor health, poor nutrition, or lack of exercise can also injure your hearing. Try to take good care of your health in all ways and this will protect your hearing as well.
- If you use any medication, ask your doctor if it has any impact on hearing. high-frequency hearing loss can be caused by at least 200 different kinds of medications. Your hearing can even be damaged by high doses of aspirin. Check with your doctor to see if there are possibilities less likely to injure your hearing. Stay in close contact with your hearing health care provider if you can’t abstain from using a particular medication. Additional hearing loss can be prevented by treatment.
high-frequency Hearing Loss Treatment
Presently, the most effective strategy for dealing with high-frequency hearing loss is hearing aids. And because this is the most widespread kind of hearing loss, there are numerous different designs a person can pick from. Hearing aids can enhance high-pitched sounds so they are crisper to the listener. Several models can be configured and your hearing professional can help fine-tune them to enhance your ability to hear those sounds at the correct level, directly addressing the level and extent of the hearing loss. Some hearing aids can be controlled by your phone and include directional microphones for fine-tuning in situations like business meetings, restaurant dinners, talking on the phone or listening to children.
Make an appointment for a hearing test if you think you might have high-frequency hearing loss. Odds are, there are individually-tailored answers that can improve your capacity to hear your grandchild’s precious one-liners.