Hearing loss is about pitch as much as about volume. If it’s hard to understand the speech of a woman or a child, but you can still, mostly understand the men in the room, you could have some amount of high-frequency hearing loss. You’re not alone…this is the most common form of hearing loss.
high-frequency Hearing Loss Symptoms
With high-frequency hearing loss, you might still be able to pick up the volume of a woman’s voice or a child’s voice, but consonant sounds that make conversations easy to understand, get muddled. Normally the hardest to differentiate are consonant sounds like ch, th, t, soft s, c, sh, k, f, and h. So, it might sound like a woman or child is mumbling, even though they actually aren’t. Comprehending a child’s joke or a family member’s question about dinner plans becomes very difficult because you have lost the ability to differentiate these sounds. This can lead to frustration, depression and social isolation from your circle of family and friends.
Other sounds within the high-frequency hearing loss range (2000 Hz) are lost to people with this problem. This includes high musical notes, birds chirping, and squeaks or whistles. Even at low volumes a man’s voice, thunder, and bass musical notes, may be relatively easy to detect.
Causes of High-Frequency Hearing Loss
Often imperceptible in the beginning, high-frequency hearing loss, the most prevalent kind of hearing loss, can sneak up on you as you grow older. Other than aging, excessive noise exposure, particular medications and a number of medical issues such as cardiovascular disease can lead to high-frequency hearing loss.
The tiny hair-like sensors in the cochlea are harmed by all of these scenarios. It’s these little cells that receive sound input and deliver it to the brain for processing. The higher pitched sounds are frequently the first to become tough to understand because the high-frequency cells get injured more easily than the lower pitched cells.
How to Avoid High-Frequency Hearing Loss
Although you can’t prevent your ears from getting older, there are many things you can do to prevent or at least slow down the advancement of high-frequency hearing loss. Including these:
- Your health is important so take care of it. Smoking can damage your hearing. Poor health, poor nutrition, or lack of exercise can also harm your hearing. Maintain your hearing by taking care of your overall health.
- When extracting earwax, never utilize a swab or any other small object. Your capacity to hear is blunted when you jam old earwax against your eardrum. Gently wash out excess earwax with a cloth after you shower, or ask your hearing professional about different ear irrigation techniques for getting rid of earwax without injuring your hearing.
- If you take any medication, ask your doctor if it has any impact on hearing. high-frequency hearing loss can be caused by at least 200 different kinds of medications. Your hearing can even be damaged by high doses of aspirin. consult your doctor to determine if there are possibilities less likely to harm your hearing. If you can’t avoid using a specific medication, stay in close communication with your hearing specialist for regular hearing loss and balance testing. Additional hearing loss can be prevented by treatment.
- Quieter things are more ideal. Find noise ratings on appliances and select the quietest versions. If it’s difficult to hear your dinner companions, don’t be hesitant to ask the manager to turn down the music.
- In noisy settings, use hearing protection.A sure sign that your ears could be getting injured is if you have to yell to be heard in a loud environment. Heavy traffic, motorcycles revving, power tool sounds, the loud sound systems at movie theaters or rock concerts are all good examples of occasions when popping in the ear-plugs is a smart idea. Noise canceling headphone may not fit inside your pocket, but they can be the best option in some scenarios.
Treatment For High-Frequency Hearing Loss
At this time, the most reliable method for treating high-frequency hearing loss is hearing aids. And there are many designs to choose from because this is the most widespread type of hearing loss. Hearing aids can augment high-pitched sounds so they are crisper to the user. You can directly manage 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.
If you think that you may be dealing with high-frequency hearing loss, make an appointment for a hearing test. Chances are, there are personally-customized solutions that can enhance your ability to hear your grandchild’s precious one-liners.