Hearing loss isn’t exclusively about volume, it’s also about pitch. It’s conceivable you have some degree of high-frequency hearing loss if you can comprehend what the men in the room are saying but you can’t hear children and women. You’re not alone…this is the most prevalent form of hearing loss.
Warning Signs of High-Frequency Hearing Loss
With high-frequency hearing loss, consonant sounds that allow conversations to be understood, get muddled even though you may still be able to register the volume of a woman or a child’s voice. Normally, consonant sounds like t, th, ch, soft c, s, sh, f, k, and h are the hardest to pick out. Even though a woman or a child is not mumbling, it may sound like they are. Comprehending a child’s joke or your loved ones question about dinner plans becomes very difficult because you have lost the ability to distinguish these sounds. This can result in frustration, despair and social isolation from your circle of family and friends.
People who have high-frequency hearing loss also don’t hear other sounds that are within the high-frequency range (2000 Hz and higher). This includes high musical notes, birds chirping, and squeaks or sirens. Even at low volumes a man’s voice, thunder, and bass musical notes, might be relatively easy to detect.
Reasons For High-Frequency Hearing Loss
As the most typical type of hearing loss, high-frequency hearing loss can sneak up on people as they get older, usually imperceptibly at first. In addition to growing older, excessive noise exposure, particular medications and a variety of medical conditions including cardiovascular disease can result in high-frequency hearing loss.
These scenarios all cause damage to the tiny, hair-like sensory cells within the cochlea. Sound input is received by these little cells and sent to the brain for processing. The high-frequency sensory cells are more sensitive to injury than the low-frequency sensory cells, and this is why the higher-pitched sounds are often the first to be difficult to understand.
high-frequency Hearing Loss, How to Prevent it
You can take several steps to slow or stop the development of high-frequency hearing loss despite the fact that you can’t stop your ears from aging. Some of these include:
- Your health is important so take good care of it. Smoking can damage your hearing. Your hearing can also be injured by poor health caused by poor nutrition. Try to take good care of your health in all ways and this can protect your hearing as well.
- Putting in hearing protection in noisy settings. If you need to shout to be heard in a loud setting, this is a definite sign the noise might injure your hearing. Some instances of times when wearing ear-plugs are live music concerts, engines revving, running power tools, and a loud stereo. Noise canceling earphone may not fit in your pocket, but they can be the best solution in certain scenarios.
- When getting rid of earwax, never utilize a swab or any other small object. Your ability to hear becomes blunted when you jam old earwax against your eardrum. Gently wash out excess earwax with a washcloth when you’re done showering, or ask your hearing professional about other ear irrigation techniques for getting rid of earwax without hurting your hearing.
- Ask your doctor about medications you take. At least 200 different varieties of medications will cause or worsen high-frequency hearing loss. Even aspirin at high doses can injure your hearing. To learn if there are possibilities less likely to injure your hearing, check with your doctor. Stay in close contact with your hearing health care provider if you can’t abstain from taking a particular medication. Further hearing loss can be avoided by treatment.
- Quieter things are more ideal. Look for noise ratings on appliances and choose the quietest models. And don’t be afraid to ask the restaurant manager to turn the music down if it’s difficult to hear your friends at dinner.
high-frequency Hearing Loss Treatment
Hearing aids are at this time the most effective strategy for dealing with high-frequency hearing loss. And since this is the most common kind of hearing loss, there are various different designs a person can pick from. Hearing aids can boost high-pitched sounds so they are crisper to the listener. Several models can be configured and your hearing professional can help fine-tune them to enhance your ability to hear those sounds at the correct level, immediately addressing the level and degree of the hearing loss. For situations like talking on the phone, listening to children, having dinner at a restaurant, or business meetings many hearing aids can be manipulated by your phone and have directional microphones for fine-tuning.
If you think that you might be dealing with high-frequency hearing loss, schedule a hearing exam. Odds are, there are personally-tailored answers that can enhance your capacity to hear your grandchild’s priceless one-liners.