Written by Michelle Richards from Michelle Richards Hearing

Hearing loss rarely arrives overnight.

For most people, it happens gradually – so gradually, in fact, that the people around them may notice the change long before they do.

The television creeps up a little louder. Conversations become harder to follow. Family members seem to mumble.

And because you can still hear something, it is very easy to think:

“My hearing isn’t bad enough yet.”

As a hearing clinician, this is something I hear all the time.

But good hearing care shouldn’t begin when hearing loss has become severe enough to significantly interfere with everyday life. The best time to understand your hearing is before you reach that point.

Hearing loss isn’t just about volume

One of the biggest misconceptions about hearing loss is that everything simply becomes quieter.

For many people, the first noticeable problem is actually clarity.

They can hear that somebody is speaking but cannot reliably understand the words.

That is why people with emerging hearing loss often say:

“I can hear you. I just can’t understand you.”

Certain speech sounds may become less audible than others, meaning the brain receives an incomplete version of the spoken message and has to work harder to fill in the gaps.

Initially, we can become remarkably good at compensating. We use context, facial expressions, lip movements and our knowledge of the conversation to work out what was probably said.

But listening shouldn’t have to become detective work.

The brain is part of hearing too

Your ears collect sound, but it is your brain that ultimately has to interpret it.

When hearing changes gradually, the brain may receive less access to some of the acoustic information it previously relied upon.

This is one reason I encourage people not to think of hearing care simply as something we address when hearing becomes “bad enough”.

Earlier assessment gives us an opportunity to understand how you are hearing now, monitor changes over time and intervene when there is a genuine clinical need.

Importantly, intervention doesn’t necessarily mean hearing aids.

Sometimes the appropriate recommendation is simply:

“Your hearing looks healthy. Let’s establish this as your baseline and check it again in the future.”

That is valuable information too.

“But I’m managing…”

You probably are.

The more useful question is: how hard are you working to manage?

Perhaps you choose the quiet corner of the restaurant without consciously knowing why. Perhaps meetings leave you exhausted, or you avoid answering the phone when you’re somewhere noisy.

These little adaptations can accumulate so gradually that we don’t necessarily recognise them as hearing difficulties.

A comprehensive hearing assessment can identify changes well before someone considers themselves “deaf” or believes they need hearing aids.

And modern assessment should look beyond simply asking whether you can hear a series of beeps.

At Michelle Richards Hearing, I also look at speech understanding and hearing in background noise, because this is often where people first experience difficulty in real life.

When should you have your hearing checked?

There doesn’t need to be something terribly wrong before you book a hearing assessment.

Consider having your hearing checked if you:

• regularly ask people to repeat themselves
• hear conversation but struggle to understand the words
• find restaurants and group conversations increasingly difficult
• turn the television up higher than other people prefer
• experience tinnitus
• have a history of occupational or recreational noise exposure
• notice one ear seems better than the other
• find listening increasingly tiring
• have family members commenting on your hearing
• simply haven’t had your hearing properly assessed for several years.

And if your hearing turns out to be normal? Wonderful.

You now have a baseline against which future changes can be compared.

Early hearing care is preventative hearing care

We routinely check our eyes before we can no longer see.

We monitor our blood pressure before we become unwell.

We visit the dentist before we have unbearable toothache.

Our hearing deserves the same approach.

Early hearing care is not about convincing everybody to wear hearing aids.

It is about knowing where you stand, recognising change early and making informed decisions about your hearing health before communication becomes unnecessarily difficult.

So perhaps the question isn’t:

“Is my hearing bad enough to do something about it?”

Perhaps a better question is:

“Am I hearing as well as I could be?”

Michelle Richards Hearing — Ethical. Local. Independent.

We have moved!!

Suite 68, 12 Challis St, Dickson, ACT 2602. Book online at: michellerichardshearing.com.au or call 02 6281 0222.