Time to Read: 6 minutes
by Jacqui Carling-Rodgers
We get our eyes tested regularly, we also go to the dentist to have our teeth checked - so why aren’t we as diligent about having our ears checked?
Perhaps one of the reasons is because hearing loss is incremental. If you have no other health concerns, it’s out of sight, out of mind, so to speak.
After crossing a certain birthday ending in ‘zero’... (ahem, a lady never reveals her age), I thought it was time to have my hearing tested.
But not before my husband had his tested.
I was never conscious of it, but apparently I’d been giving my dearly beloved the side eye whenever he asked me to repeat things. And he kept insisting that his hearing was quite alright, thank you very much.
After spending his teens and twenties playing in rock bands and regularly attending nightclubs and loud concerts, you might colour me just a little skeptical about his assurances of excellent hearing.
Another factor is that my husband too has passed the milestone birthday ending in ‘zero’, and all the literature says that people who have passed this significant milestone are almost certain to have a degree of hearing loss.
So, he agreed to have his hearing tested, if only to prove me wrong.
And…
He was right.
With an audiogram print out held up triumphantly, my husband showed that his hearing was still all within the normal range (even if the highest frequencies in one ear were on the threshold).
All in all, an excellent result.
Now it was my turn.
I have had very mild tinnitus for years. Fortunately it has never been a problem, it just sounds like very faint cicadas and is only really noticeable at bedtime - so perhaps it is me who has a hearing problem…
Well, there was only one thing to do and that was to have my hearing tested too.
The audiologist is very friendly and goes out of her way to tell me what is involved in the test. She asks if I have any concerns about my hearing. I tell her about my tinnitus and the possibility that my left ear doesn’t work as well as my right ear (although that might be dodgy headphones)
First, we start by taking a good look at my ears.
I don’t have to take my audiologist’s word for it - I can see inside my own ears on the big screen thanks to the video otoscope. I’m told all looks good, but I do have a bit of wax build up - and that’s no surprise, every couple of years it gets so bad that I need to have it syringed out every couple of years.
The last time I had a hearing test was when I was five and the entire class was cycled through a room where headphones were put on our head. We listened to tones and put up our left or right hand depending on which ear the sound came in.
As a child who suffered performance anxiety at the best of times, I have spent years worried that I put up my right hand when I actually meant my left…
I need not have worried this time. We tested one ear at a time with various tones and pitches and all I had to do was press a button as soon as I could hear it.
The next test I was given a set of words to remember and repeat. The final test was a speech-in-noise test which had me follow and repeat a conversation with increasing babble in the background.
I was surprised at how difficult it was to get through that final conversation!
The audiologist uses all of those results to map my hearing across frequencies and pitches for each ear.
And the result…
I have better than average hearing thanks to an excellent speech in noise test - not exactly in Jamie Sommers, the Bionic Woman territory (remember that 1970s TV show?), but still very, very good.
My husband was also delighted by the result.
“See? That makes sense,” he said. “My hearing was never bad, it’s just yours are exceptional!”
I told him that I’m exceptional in all ways and now he has to prove otherwise.
How long has it been since your own hearing test? If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for a loved one. Early identification of hearing loss gives you great options to maximise your hearing.
Wearing hearing aids to correct hearing loss have many other proven benefits with wearers reporting greater social interaction, less depression. Hearing aid wearers have reduced risk of dementia.
