If you think you may have hearing loss and could benefit from hearing aids, now is the time to do something about it. Hearing loss is a progressive condition, developing slowly over time. Chances are, you are not even aware of most of the sounds you have stopped hearing over the last few years.
Hearing Loss Causes
More than 48 million Americans experience hearing loss. The most common causes are:
- Aging
- Exposure to loud noise
- Medications
- Illness
- Trauma
- Infection
Hearing loss is the third most common health problem in the country. With such a prevalence, it is amazing that on average people with hearing loss wait over 10 years after their initial diagnosis to be fit with their first set of hearing aids.
Writing the Book on Hearing Loss
David Owen, a writer for the New Yorker published a book encouraging readers to pay attention to dangerous listening environments and seek treatment as early as possible. Volume Control: Hearing in a Deafening World, sums up the problem: “Hearing problems are often aggravated by the human tendency to do nothing and hope for the best, usually while pretending that everything is fine.”
Owen examines hidden causes of hearing loss that are all around us. While attending rock concerts and walking too close to a construction worker using a jackhammer can lead to hearing loss, so can small household appliances. Food processors, blenders and even hair dryers produce sounds loud enough to cause permanent damage.
Restaurants and bars are also dangerous for your hearing. As the night goes on, these establishments turn up the house music to encourage less talking and more drinking. Owen recommends using a cellphone app called SoundPrint, which he describes as “Yelp for noise levels.” According to the app, the quietest types of restaurants in New York City are Chinese, Indian and Japanese. The loudest is Mexican restaurants.
Benefit of Hearing Aids
“There is no better time in all of human history to be a person with hearing loss,” says Owen. Hearing aid technology is evolving at a rapid rate and scientists are publishing breakthroughs regularly.
Owen concludes “What’s remarkable is not that so many of us have trouble following conversations at cocktail parties but that anyone past adolescence can hear anything at all.”
The earlier you seek treatment for your hearing loss, the better the outcome. Contact North Alabama ENT to get started today.