Of all the senses we have, hearing is one of the most important ones, which makes the whole auditory system one of the most important parts of our body. However, this important system is really fragile and delicate, and any minor inconvenience can cause huge damage to your auditory system. If the auditory system gets damaged, you might fall victim to hearing loss problems.
Actually, a lot of people face hearing loss problems to some degree. And hearing loss problems can be caused due to many reasons. Getting older is one of the most common causes of someone’s hearing loss, as important hair cells that work behind your hearing might get damaged as you grow older. And if the cells, along with some other important parts of the auditory system, get damaged, you might face hearing loss. However, hearing loss mostly occurs gradually. It’s not something sudden.
Hearing loss takes place over a period of time. And when you start losing your hearing, it remains very subtle at the very beginning, and you might not understand at all that you are having hearing loss problems. You might start noticing that you aren’t able to hear as well as before after a certain period of time when you have already lost quite a lot of hearing ability. However, hearing loss problems always remained there while you weren’t paying attention. If you fail to detect hearing loss problems soon, it can take a huge toll on your hearing system.
Not only your hearing system but your overall health also can get hugely hampered too. Not to mention the mental health problems you will face too as a consequence. If your hearing loss problems go unnoticed and untreated, it is likely that you will develop depression, feelings of isolation, and you might also develop problems regarding your memory.
So, it is very important that you can detect your hearing loss problems as soon as you start suffering from them. And for doing that, you need to look out for some symptoms that are mentioned below. If any of them applies to you, you must consult an audiologist and take a hearing test to confirm if you have any problems. People who are hard of hearing usually communicate through spoken language and can benefit from digital hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive devices.
Children’s voices Seem Unclear and Muffled.
While you are aging, your cochlea might go through a significant amount of damages, which is the inner organ of the ear and helps with your hearing. The cells that can detect high-pitched sounds are mostly the first to deteriorate as you keep aging. And as a result, it becomes really hard to hear the people who have high-pitched voices, especially women and children. You might also not be able to listen to the chirping of crickets at night or the high-pitched beep sound a microwave oven makes.
Facing Difficulties to Follow Conversations In Noisy Places
The noises we find in public places are mostly low-pitched, but interestingly enough, most of the letters we use while making conversations are high-pitched. And people who have problems understanding high-pitched sounds find it challenging to follow any particular conversation. Even if it can be managed in quiet places, it becomes really difficult to do so in noisy and crowded places, especially in social gatherings and restaurants. Also, the function in your brain that works to process sounds might get weaker with age, so it becomes more difficult to ignore the background noises.
Getting Exhausted By Social Events
When you are in a social gathering, a lot of people are present there, and if you try to make a conversation, it might happen that multiple persons are talking simultaneously. And if you can’t recognize the sound of a particular speech, your brain then tries to make sense of what the other people are saying. You need to pay a lot of attention while doing so and especially more when multiple people are speaking at the same time. As a result, you’ll find it really hard to follow conversations in social gatherings if you have hearing loss problems. And you might feel drained and exhausted after attending such events and feel like isolating yourself from everyone.
Avoiding Eye Contact and Focusing On Lips While Making Conversation
By natural response, if one of your senses gets damaged and not working at optimum capacity, your other senses will get heightened. And in the case of your hearing loss getting damaged, your eyesight might get amplified, and you’ll be able to detect little details like you’ll be able to understand what someone is saying by focusing on their lips. And since it has become tougher for you to understand someone by simply listening, you’ll simply focus on their lips while making conversation. And as a result, you’ll face problems maintaining proper eye contact.
Final Words
If you start facing any of the above symptoms, you must take it really seriously and soon take consultation from an audiologist. After going through hearing loss tests, if you find out that you actually have hearing loss problems, you must take proper measures to help yourself have better hearing and start using things like hearing aids, cochlear implants, etc. The sooner you’ll take the necessary measures, the better it’ll be for your hearing health as well as your overall physical and mental health.
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