Use Hearing Protection and Common Sense to Save Your Hearing Health

There are no medications or surgeries that can treat noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Once the tiny hair cells on your ears are damaged, they do not grow back. It’s important to be aware of your surroundings and take precautions when possible. 

If you currently experience hearing loss, here are some precautions you should take to prevent the loss from worsening:

• Avoid loud and noisy environments.
• Wear hearing protection. This may include earplugs, earmuffs, or noise-canceling headphones. 
• Keep the volume at a low level when listening to anything through earbuds or headphones. 
• Get a hearing test from Pure Sound Hearing if you suspect hearing loss or develop sudden hearing loss. 

6 Tips to Navigate Life with Hearing Loss
 

1. Look at the person who is speaking. Visual cues are a subconscious element that helps with hearing. Everyone lip-reads, while facial expressions and body language can help piece together what a person is conveying. 
2. Put yourself in the best area to hear others. If you’re in a crowded area, make sure you place yourself in between the person who is speaking and the background noise. You may request a quiet area in a restaurant and sit directly across from the person/people that attend the restaurant with you. If you’re at a party and need to speak with someone or a very small group of people, find a quiet room to go into. 
3. Keep an environment’s layout in mind before spending a lot of time there. The physical design and layout of a space can make it easy or challenging to hear. Look for an area with good lighting, carpeted floors that absorb sound, and acoustic ceiling tiles that reduce reverberation in a room.   
4. Be observant during conversations. When you have difficulty hearing, conversations are easier to follow if there’s context that can be referenced.   
5. Let others know that you have trouble with your hearing. People who speak to you can help you understand them better, by getting your attention before speaking and letting you see their face in order to read facial cues.  
6. Use closed captioning or captioning apps. Closed captioning, or are optional captions that can be turned off during a video or movie that is being shown, can be switched on while watching TV, movies, or online videos. Captions can help you get with the program, and have an easier time understanding what’s going on. 

Use an External Device to Help you Hear   

If you currently experience hearing loss, hearing devices can work with the hearing that you still have.

Hearing Aids

Hearing aids amplify sounds while reducing distracting background noises. Programming the hearing aids and adding different channels can help you hear in different environments while honing in on sounds that are picked up through the hearing aids’ directional microphone.  

Assistive Listening Devices (ALD)

An assistive listening device can help someone with hearing loss hear better while on the phone with telephone amplifiers. An alarm clock or a fire alarm that flashes or vibrates can alert you. Loop, FM, and infrared systems can send sounds to some earphones and hearing aids. These can help you hear TV broadcasts, movies, theater shows, and announcements in other public areas. 

If you, or a loved one, are noticing hearing loss and need guidance for treatment options, please contact us at Pure Sound Hearing for a complimentary hearing test and consultation.   

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