Hearing loss is not exclusively about volume, it’s about pitch. It’s conceivable you have some amount of high-frequency hearing loss if you can comprehend what the men in the room are saying but you can’t hear children and women. You’re not alone…this is the most prevalent type of hearing loss.
High-Frequency Hearing Loss Warning Signs
With high-frequency hearing loss, consonant sounds that allow conversations to be understood, get muddled even though you may still be able to register the volume of a woman or a child’s voice. Normally, consonant sounds such as t, th, ch, soft c, s, sh, f, k, and h are the most difficult to differentiate. So, it might sound like a woman or child is mumbling, even though they actually aren’t. Comprehending 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 family and friends, sadness, and frustration can be the result.
People with high-frequency hearing loss also don’t hear other sounds falling within the high-frequency range (2000 Hz and higher). This includes high musical notes, birds chirping, and squeaks or whistles. Low-frequency sounds like bass musical notes, the rumble of thunder or a man’s voice might still be fairly easy to discern, even if the volume isn’t very loud.
Causes of High-Frequency Hearing Loss
As the most widespread type of loss of hearing, high-frequency hearing loss can sneak up on people as they grow older, usually imperceptibly at first. high-frequency hearing loss can be caused by other things besides aging such as specific medical disorders like cardiovascular disease, excessive noise exposure, and some medications.
These situations all cause damage to the tiny, hair-like sensory cells within the cochlea. Sound input is picked up by these little cells and sent to the brain for processing. The higher pitched sounds are often the first to be hard to understand because the high-frequency cells get damaged more easily than the lower pitched cells.
High-Frequency Hearing Loss, How to Prevent it
You can take several steps to slow down or stop the progress of high-frequency hearing loss despite the fact that you can’t stop your ears from growing older. Some of these include:
- Seeking out quiet things. Find noise ratings on appliances and pick the quietest models. If it’s tough to hear your dinner companions, don’t be hesitant to ask the manager to turn the music down.
- Your health is important so take care of it. Smoking can damage your hearing. Your hearing can also be injured by poor health due to poor nutrition. Maintain your hearing by taking care of your overall health.
- Wearing hearing protection in noisy situations. If you have to yell to be heard in a noisy environment, this is a certain indication the noise might injure your hearing. Some examples of times when wearing ear-plugs are live music concerts, motorcycles revving, running power tools, and a loud stereo. Noise-canceling headphones are also a good solution in some situations, but might not fit in your pocket as easily as ear-plugs.
- Never using a swab (or other small objects) to remove ear wax. Your ability to hear becomes blunted when you push old earwax against your eardrum. A hot shower is normally enough o get rid of exes earwax but if this doesn’t work ask your hearing professional for other methods of irrigating your ears.
- If you take 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. Even aspirin at high doses can damage your hearing. To learn if there are choices less likely to damage your hearing, check with your doctor. Stay in close contact with your hearing health care provider if you can’t abstain from using a certain medication. Dealing with hearing loss early can help prevent further loss.
High-Frequency Hearing Loss Treatment
Hearing aids are presently the most efficient strategy for dealing with high-frequency hearing loss. And there are numerous designs to choose from because this is the most common type of hearing loss. Hearing aids can enhance high-pitched sounds so they are clearer to the listener. Many models are configurable and your hearing care expert can help fine-tune them to improve your ability to hear those sounds at the correct level, directly addressing the level and extent of the hearing loss. For circumstances such as talking on the phone, listening to children, having dinner at a restaurant, or business meetings many hearing aids can be manipulated by your phone and have directional microphones for fine-tuning.
Make an appointment for a hearing test if you suspect you may have high-frequency hearing loss. Chances are, there are individually-customized solutions that can improve your capacity to hear your grandchild’s priceless one-liners.