Taking care of your hearing at every age and everyday

Hearing is something that most of us take for granted everyday. But you might think that this topic doesn't really apply to you - or does it? However, it does apply to everyone on this planet.

Our world is loud, and it's getting louder each day. By the time we realize we have hearing loss, the damage may have already been done and we may not be able to recognize it.

Taking care of your hearing at every age and everyday is really important for overall health and well being.

There could be many causes of this - genetic or inherited loss, traumatic damage, medication toxicity, aged-related or noise-induced hearing loss. Regardless of the cause, hearing loss makes communication more difficult in daily living and can bring about a tremendous sense of isolation and may even be a threat to safety. Protecting our hearing is mostly about prevention, so it's important to be cautious at every age.

We've all been to a loud concert or event. As a measure of loudness - if you had to shout to be heard, it was too loud! Sitting in front of the speakers at a rock concert can expose you to 120 decibels, which will begin to damage hearing in only 7.5 minutes. Perhaps you noticed that after you left a loud event that the world seemed very quiet or muffled. This is a normal defense mechanism of the ear but if that quiet or buzz lasted more than 20 minutes, you did some harm. This harm is cumulative - repeated exposure to loud surroundings chips away your natural hearing ability slowly over the years.

There are other sources of loud noise that can put our hearing at risk - ear buds, headphones, noise canceling headsets and audio systems, auto racing, target shooting and even some workplace environments or day-to- day noise like city traffic. Turning up the ear buds to mask the noise is the wrong response! It does more damage to our hearing capability in the long term.

There is also a level of natural hearing loss that comes with age for every person, mostly at higher pitch levels. Do you remember that as a kid we often asked why our grandparents had their TV volume so high.

The final type of hearing issue to mention is the loss of speech discrimination, causing you to not understand speech or words in noisy spaces. More of us have this problem than we are prepared to admit, so the best strategy is to let others know that you are having difficulty hearing and do our best to accommodate each other. Trying to position yourself strategically to reduce the distracting noise can help and effectively resolve the communication problem.

Technology to support those with impaired hearing is changing rapidly and for those who need them, hearing aids are practically invisible these days. It is not a total solution for severe hearing loss but the advancements are startling. You may not know that you have a problem, so please ask your physician to get your hearing tested if you're getting comments or complaints from your family or friends.

Ensure you keep in mind that the best way to avoid hearing loss is prevention and protecting your hearing as much as you can everyday and at every age..

Photo by jonas mohamadi: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-a-boy-listening-in-headphones-1490844/