Hearing loss is not simply about volume, it’s also about pitch. It’s likely you have some degree of high-frequency hearing loss if you can understand what the men in the room are saying but you can’t hear women and children. You’re not alone…this is the most prevalent kind of hearing loss.

Warning Signs of High-Frequency Hearing Loss

With high-frequency hearing loss, you could still be able to pick up the volume of a woman’s voice or a child’s voice, but consonant sounds that allow conversations to be easily understood, get muddled. 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 might sound that way. Comprehending a child’s joke or a family member’s question about dinner plans becomes very difficult because you have lost the ability to distinguish these sounds. Isolation from family and friends, sadness, and frustration can be the result.

Other sounds within the high-frequency hearing loss range (2000 Hz) are missed by people with this condition. This includes birds chirping, high musical notes, sirens or squeaks. Low-frequency sounds like bass musical notes, the rumble of thunder or a man’s voice may still be quite easy to detect, even if the volume isn’t that loud.

Reasons For High-Frequency Hearing Loss

Usually imperceptible in the beginning, high-frequency hearing loss, the most widespread kind of hearing loss, can creep up on you as you age. In addition to growing older, excessive noise exposure, select medications and a number of medical problems like cardiovascular disease can result in high-frequency hearing loss.

The tiny hair-like sensors in the cochlea are injured by all of these situations. It’s these tiny cells that receive sound input and send it to the brain for processing. The high-frequency sensory cells are more prone to injury than the low-frequency sensory cells, and this is why the higher-pitched sounds are usually the first to become difficult to understand.

How to Prevent High-Frequency Hearing Loss

You can do several things to slow or stop the progression of high-frequency hearing loss even though you can’t stop your ears from aging. Some of these include:

• Your health is important so take good care of it. Smoking can injury your hearing. Poor health, poor nutrition, or lack of exercise can also injure your hearing. Try to take good care of your health in all aspects and this will protect your hearing also.
• Ask your doctor about medications you take. high-frequency hearing loss can be triggered by at least 200 different kinds of medications. Even too much aspirin can damage your hearing. To discover if there are possibilities less likely to damage your hearing, consult your doctor. If you can’t avoid taking a particular medication, keep in close contact with your hearing care professional for regular hearing loss and balance testing. Treating hearing loss early can help prevent further loss.
• Seeking out quiet things. Find noise ratings on appliances and choose the quietest models. If it’s difficult to hear your dinner companions, don’t be hesitant to ask the manager to turn the music down.
• Never using a swab (or other small objects) to remove ear wax. Your ability to hear becomes blunted when you jam old earwax against your eardrum. Gently wipe out excess earwax with a cloth when you’re done showering, or ask your hearing care specialist about other ear irrigation techniques for eliminating earwax without hurting your hearing.
• In noisy environments, use hearing protection. If you have to shout to be heard in a loud setting, this is a sure signal the noise could damage your hearing. Heavy traffic, motorcycles revving, power tool sounds, the loud stereo systems at movies or live music concerts are all good examples of occasions when popping in the ear-plugs is a good idea. Noise-canceling headphones are also a good solution in certain situations, but may not fit inside your pocket as easily as ear-plugs.

High-frequency Hearing Loss Treatment

At this time, the most effective method for dealing with high-frequency hearing loss is hearing aids. And because this is the most common kind of hearing loss, there are many different models a person can choose from. Hearing aids can augment high-pitched sounds so they are crisper to the user. You can directly address your level and extent of hearing loss by having your hearing care pro fine-tune your hearing aid to improve your ability to hear sounds at the right level. Some hearing aids can be manipulated by your phone and come with directional microphones for fine-tuning in circumstances such as business meetings, restaurant dinners, talking on the phone or listening to children.

Schedule a hearing test if you think you might have high-frequency hearing loss. If you would like to enhance your capacity to hear your grandchild’s precious one-liner, odds are there are personally designed answers for you.