By Dr. Jamie Gilgren

Hearing Rehab Center, Longmont
 

Denial is the number one reason a person is not proactive about their hearing.  Not understanding the detrimental effect of waiting too long to improve hearing is the second reason a person ignores their hearing loss.

 

The average person waits ten years before admitting to a hearing loss.  During these ten years, two types of hearing loss are occurring:  your ability to detect sound in terms of loud, quiet, comfortable; and your ability to understand what is being spoken.  During these ten years, your ability to detect sounds worsens, which causes a hearing loss.  This hearing loss filters out crucial sound needed to keep the auditory nerve healthy, which causes a second type of hearing loss, your inability to understand speech. 

You can stop the second type of hearing loss by wearing a hearing aid.  A hearing aid helps you detect sound, and it maximizes your physical ability to hear sound.  A hearing aid cannot fix physical damage to the auditory nerve, but when you wear a hearing aid, you stop any further damage to the auditory nerve.  It is the auditory nerve that allows you to understand what is being spoken.  The auditory nerve needs consistent stimuli to maintain its health.  If you do not hear certain sounds well, the auditory neurons in that area degenerate over time and you will stop registering those sounds.  The longer you wait to do something about your hearing loss, the more damage you do to the auditory neurons that aid in the process of understanding speech.  Wearing a hearing aid sooner will allow you to preserve your understanding of speech.

 

Think of a hearing aid as physical therapy for the ear.  If you have a muscle injury, you must exercise the muscle that is damaged to keep it in shape.  If you have a hearing loss, you must exercise the ear by wearing a hearing aid to keep your hearing in shape.  Teens, young adults, lawyers, doctors, audiologists, and dentists all wear hearing aids.  Hearing aids are not a symbol of age.  Hearing aids are a symbol that you are still interested in hearing the sounds of life!