About Your Hearing
Hearing FAQ's
Hearing loss is extremely common; it’s estimated that 48 million people in the U.S. have some degree of hearing loss. There are different potential causes. Exposure to loud noise can result in hearing loss later in life, which is why it’s so important to wear hearing protection. Hearing loss can also be a symptom of aging. Other causes include illness, injury, and as a side effect of some medications.
There are three kinds of hearing loss:
- Conductive hearing loss, which means something is physically blocking the sound. This can be as simple as earwax that we remove, restoring your hearing. In some cases, the blockage might need medical assistance.
- Sensorineural hearing loss occurs when your hearing nerve is damaged. This can occur with time as you age, or it is something you can be born with. Sensorineural hearing loss is treated with hearing aids.
- Mixed hearing loss is a combination of the two. Treatment begins by addressing the conductive hearing loss, then adds hearing aids to help with the sensorineural hearing loss.
Keeping up with regular maintenance of your hearing aids will make them last longer and help you hear the best you can. When you take them out at night, wipe them down, open the battery doors, and store them in a dry place, not in the bathroom. It’s very important to make sure that they are out of reach of your pets at all times! We frequently have to replace hearing aids because someone’s dog thought they would be a great snack.
Hearing aids don’t function like reading glasses; they’re more than just amplification devices. You can’t just buy them, put them in your ears, and expect to hear well. To really be effective, they need to be programmed by a skilled audiologist or hearing instrument specialist to address your individual hearing loss. The audiologists at Hearing Care Center have been fitting clients with hearing aids for decades, and we use that expertise to help clients hear as well as possible with their hearing aids.
Unfortunately, hearing aids are not a cure for hearing loss. They will not make you hear perfectly. However, today’s hearing aids can make a world of difference. You may not even realize how much you’re missing without them until you try them for yourself.
We recognize that we aren’t just working with the person who has hearing loss; we’re also on a team with their loved ones. It’s important to be patient and willing to help. If you can, come with them to their early appointments so we can test demo hearing aids with your voice and show you how to take care of the hearing aids. That way, when your loved one is home, you can help remind them how to do things like change the batteries, take their hearing aids in and out, and tell which is left and which is right.
