5 Reasons to Take an Annual Hearing Test
We go to the doctor and the dentist at least once a year for a checkup, but many people neglect to have their hearing evaluated with the same regularity. Modern life has gotten a lot louder, and noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is on the rise again.
Reason 1: Culture of Care
While 10% of Millennials have hearing loss, about 17% of Gen-Z’ers do. Why does this younger generation have a higher rate of hearing loss?
There are a few likely culprits. PA systems today can be both smaller in size and louder than PA systems in the past. Many events that we attend are over-amplified as a result. The average high school dance measures at about 100 dBA (decibels A-weighted), which can cause permanent hearing loss after only 15 minutes of continuous exposure.
Another cause is probably the much-maligned personal listening device (PLD). When the original Sony WalkmanTM came on the market in 1979, news articles proliferated about the dangers of listening to music at the Walkman’s highest volume setting. Those concerns were completely valid, and today’s PLDs have a significantly louder maximum volume than the old Walkman did.
Hearing and hearing loss are invisible. As a teenager, it’s hard to grasp that you might be causing yourself permanent harm by simply turning up the volume on your music player. If we go to the audiologist as often as we go to the dentist, we’ll be able to see clearly that we are on track to cause significant long-term harm to ourselves by failing to protect our hearing adequately.
And by making hearing testing a priority, we can engender a greater consciousness of the importance of avoiding loud sound and wearing hearing protection.
Reason 2: Catch It Early
Hearing loss can be caused by as little as 85 dBA (about the sound level of a gas-powered lawnmower) after about 8 hours of exposure. Many of us don’t realize just how much sound we’re taking in during a day. By getting your hearing tested annually, you can see immediately how much hearing loss you have. For a young person, this might only be a few dBHL (decibels Hearing Level) at a couple of frequencies, but once you know you’re starting to experience hearing loss, you can take steps to prevent it going forward.
Similarly, chemical exposure or certain medications might also cause hearing loss. Your audiologist will likely be able to help you identify whether your hearing loss is the result of noise or something else.
Reason 3: Establish and Compare to a Baseline
Everyone hears a little differently. You are likely to have started your life with some deviations from “perfect” hearing. There is a wide range of “normal,” and while we don’t experience listening challenges as a result of some hearing loss, it’s important to find out where we started from if we are to track the changes in our hearing ability going forward.
A “baseline” hearing test should be performed early in adult life. This creates a record of your hearing ability in the physical prime of your ears’ lives. Without a baseline, there is nothing to compare to.
But without subsequent tests, you’ll never know what’s happening with your hearing. By getting checked once a year, your audiologist can compare your new test to your last test, and even earlier tests.
Reason 4: Identify Health Concerns
Sometimes, a hearing loss that progresses more rapidly than normal can indicate an underlying cardiovascular issue. In this way, our hearing can sometimes be the “canary in the coal mine” of our body. Your audiologist can alert you that your hearing loss is progressing at a troubling pace, and an examination by a doctor could then potentially save your life.
Reason 5: Start Treatment
We usually aren’t the first to know when we have hearing loss. A person who is close to us can usually tell that we’re having hearing issues earlier than we understand, ourselves. By getting annual hearing tests, you can have an objective measurement and the recommendation of an audiologist to go on. People tend to wait an average of seven years from the time they notice hearing loss to the time they start wearing hearing aids. This is unfortunate because, after seven years, we start to see changes in not only the lifestyle but the brains of people who have not started wearing hearing aids.
If you or a loved one is living with hearing loss, or if you’re due for a hearing test, make an appointment today.
