What is Hearing Loss?
Hearing loss is the inability to hear in one or both ears. Millions of Americans have hearing loss to some degree. Those who are hearing impaired don’t always experience a complete absence of sound, rather it’s difficult to hear certain words or everything seems muffled. To determine if you have hearing loss and the exact degree of your loss, you need to have a hearing exam. We can help you identify the cause of your hearing loss and how it affects you.
Untreated Hearing Loss and Your Health
When left untreated, hearing loss can have a negative impact on your overall health. Your hearing plays a significant role in your ability to effectively communicate and in your cognitive function. Sometimes hearing loss can be the result of another health condition, such as diabetes, heart disease, or high blood pressure. For this reason, it’s important to have your hearing checked on an annual basis if you are over the age of 55. By being proactive, we can help you catch hearing loss – and subsequentially – any other condition early.
Hearing is also deeply connected to our cognitive function. We need our hearing to have an active and healthy brain. When hearing loss is left untreated, your brain doesn’t receive the proper stimulation it needs through sound signals, and over time it can forget those sounds. This can lead to depression, forgetfulness, fatigue, and cognitive decline. If you have hearing loss, it’s important to manage it right away by wearing hearing aids.
Signs of Hearing Loss
To be proactive of your hearing health it’s important to recognize the signs of hearing loss early. Some common signs of hearing loss include:
- Sounds seem muffled
- It’s difficult to hear when there is background noise
- You can hear but you lack clarity
- You hear a ringing in your ears (tinnitus)
- You turn the volume up on the TV or radio
- You often ask people to repeat themselves
- It’s difficult to hear the speaker on the other end of the phone
Tinnitus
Tinnitus can be extremely annoying, affecting your quality of life and sleep. Tinnitus is when you hear a ringing, buzzing, humming, whistling, whooshing, or another sound in your ears when no external noise is present. Tinnitus can be soft or loud, intermittent or constant, high pitched or low pitched. Everyone experiences tinnitus differently, but you don’t have to live with it.
At Gateway Hearing Solutions, we offer tinnitus management solutions that can help alleviate the ringing in your ears. The first step is to determine what caused your tinnitus. If your symptoms are due to a medication, earwax build-up, or ear infection, resolving the issue may stop the symptoms of tinnitus.
If you have tinnitus that is the result of another issue, hearing aids with a masking feature may help you. If you have hearing loss and tinnitus, hearing aids will help by amplifying your surroundings, so you don’t focus on the tinnitus. Another solution is white noise machines. Playing soothing sounds at night can help distract your brain from the symptoms of tinnitus, so you can sleep peacefully. Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) is also an option. This form of therapy is designed to help individuals with tinnitus find relief.
If you are suffering from annoying ringing in the ears, contact us today. We can help you experience relief.
