No matter who you are, or where you come from, your ability to hear will shape how you experience your world. Issues with hearing can affect your work, study, relationships, and every facet of life, so it is important to take the time to ensure that you are hearing as well as you could be, and catch any problems early – to ensure that you get the best out of life. A loss of hearing can happen gradually, and can often go unnoticed until it starts to become a real problem, but being mindful of the signs, and having regular hearing checks can reduce the impact. Here are some of the signs that you may need to have your hearing tested.

Conversations

Do you find yourself often asking people to repeat themselves, or feel that everybody seems to be mumbling all the time? This could be because of a gradual loss of hearing that has occurred over time, or you may have started to rely on lip-reading without even realising it. Or does it seem like your conversations are starting to feel like a game of ‘Chinese whispers’? This could be because you are only hearing certain registers of sound and what you think you heard is something completely different to what was actually being said.

Turning It Up

Are people starting to tell you that you listen to your music too loudly, or do you need to have the TV on really loud to hear it properly? Often when experiencing a gradual loss of hearing, you may find that you are compensating for an internal issue by adjusting the external volume. When you start to notice that both the stereo speakers and the TV speakers seem to be ‘not working as well as they used to’, it might point to an issue with your hearing.

Ringing or Buzzing

An occasional ringing or buzzing in the ears is generally quite common for most people from time to time, and presents no worry, but if it does not get better, or go away it could indicate tinnitus. There are two main types of tinnitus; Pulsatile tinnitus and Nonpulsatile tinnitus. Pulsatile tinnitus can often keep pace with your heart beat and is often caused by sounds created by muscle movements near the ear, vascular problems in the face and neck and changes in the ear canal. Nonpulsative tinnitus can be cause by problems with the nerves that are used for hearing. The most common causes for tinnitus are due to hearing loss due to ageing, or through living or working around loud noises.

Other signs to look out for include; having difficulty following conversations with more than two people, struggling to hear in crowded places and inability to hear household sounds such as dripping taps and clocks. Are there any other issues that you are experiencing with your hearing that you need help with? If you are experiencing any of these hearing issues or have concerns about your hearing it might be time to book in for a hearing check today.