You might assume that the inability to hear the television or the sound of a neighbor knocking on your door would be glaring signs of hearing loss. However, hearing loss is not always noticeable. It has a way of sneaking up on you. It’s possible that the normal annoyances you’ve been experiencing lately are, in fact, indicators that your hearing is deteriorating. Keep reading to learn more and contact an audiologist if you think you may be experiencing hearing loss.

You Can’t Hear the TV or Phone Conversations

Even the mildest hearing loss can make it difficult for a person to understand a conversation, which may cause them to crank up the TV or cause family members or neighbors to complain about the loudness.

Hearing loss usually begins with a person’s inability to hear high frequency sounds like s, f or th. As a result, there may be abrupt gaps in a person’s conversation, which might also cause you to misunderstand them and turn up the TV or move the phone to the other ear to try to hear better.

You Find It Hard to Follow Conversations

It’s not just the television or your phone – you can have trouble hearing people in real life as well. You might realize that you are asking what more frequently than you would like, which can be frustrating for both you and the individuals with whom you interact.

This could manifest itself in its most severe form in louder settings, such as restaurants with a large number of patrons or parks with a lot of wind, where the sound is muddled and distorted.

You Hear Ringing or Buzzing

You may be familiar with tinnitus, a disorder that results in a persistent ringing or buzzing that only the person experiencing it can hear. As many as 90% of tinnitus cases are linked to hearing loss, demonstrating how closely the illness is related to hearing loss. Therefore, if you have tinnitus, you could potentially have hearing loss in the future.

You Had Many Ear Infections

One or two ear infections won’t be catastrophic because they aren’t exactly rare in infants and young children. However, if a child gets enough infections, it could harm them enough to eventually lead to hearing loss. How many did you have? Could that be the cause behind your loss of hearing?

Someone In Your Family Has Hearing Loss

A sad fact is that sometimes hearing loss can’t be helped. Hearing loss can be passed down through families, so if you are related to someone or more than one person who has it, you are automatically at a higher risk.

Don’t worry if your grandfather or other family member has hearing loss. It’s not always the case that you’ll have it too. It’s just something you should keep in mind if your own ears start acting up.

You’ve Taken Certain Long-Term Medications

Even though these ototoxic drugs are used to treat other health problems, they can damage the hair cells inside the ear. Some of these drugs are chemotherapy drugs, antibiotics and even aspirin. All of these can cut off the blood flow to your ears, suffocate the hair cells or even attack them directly. If you take any kind of medicine, you should look into it to see if it could have damaged your hearing.

You’ve Been Exposed to Loud Noises

It’s not a big surprise that too much loud noise is bad for your hearing. In fact, noise is the main reason why adults lose their hearing. It’s easy to forget how strong sound can be, but noise pollution is so bad that it kills thousands of people every year. So, if you’ve spent your life around loud music, noisy machines or even children who scream, you could end up with hearing loss.

You Smoke or Drink

Coming back to ototoxicity, drugs aren’t the only things that can hurt your hearing. Studies have shown that both alcohol and tobacco, as well as nicotine, are bad for the inner ear in the long run. It’s not exactly shocking to learn that smoking and drinking are bad for every part of the body. But the fact that it can hurt your hearing may surprise you, so keep that in mind.

If you notice any of these warning signs or have been exposed to potential hearing loss causes, don’t ignore them – contact a professional audiologist at GL Wyeno Hearing Specialists PC at (402) 463-2431 to get checked out.