Why Can’t I Hear my Granddaughter’s Voice But I Can Hear Quiet Sounds?

Hearing loss isn’t simply about volume, it’s about pitch. It’s conceivable you have some degree of high-frequency hearing loss if you can understand what the men in the room are saying but you can’t hear children and women. You’re not alone…this is the most prevalent form of hearing loss.

high-frequency Hearing Loss Symptoms

With high-frequency hearing loss, you could still be able to pick up the volume of a woman’s voice or a child’s voice, but consonant sounds that allow conversations to be easily understood, get muddled. Usually, consonant sounds like t, th, ch, soft c, s, sh, f, k, and h are the most difficult to pick out. Even though a woman or a child is not mumbling, it may sound that way. Understanding 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 cause frustration, sadness and social isolation from your circle of family and friends.

People who have high-frequency hearing loss also miss other sounds falling within the high-frequency range (2000 Hz and higher). This includes high musical notes, birds chirping, and squeaks or sirens. Low-frequency sounds such as bass musical notes, the rumble of thunder or a man’s voice might still be fairly easy to detect, even if the volume isn’t that loud.

Reasons For High-Frequency Hearing Loss

As the most typical type of loss of hearing, high-frequency hearing loss can sneak up on people as they grow older, usually imperceptibly at first. high-frequency hearing loss can be caused by other things besides aging such as particular medical issues like cardiovascular disease, too much noise exposure, and several medications.

These scenarios all do damage to the little, hair-like sensory cells within the cochlea. Sound input is received by these tiny cells and delivered to the brain for processing. The higher pitched sounds are typically the first to be hard to understand because the high-frequency cells become damaged more easily than the lower pitched cells.

high-frequency Hearing Loss, How to Prevent it

Although you can’t stop your ears from getting older, there are many things you can do to prevent or at least slow the progression of high-frequency hearing loss. Including these:

• Your health is important so take good care of it. Your hearing can be damaged by smoking. Poor health, poor nutrition, or not enough exercise can also harm your hearing. Try to take good care of your health in all aspects and this can protect your hearing as well.
• medication hearing protection in noisy environments. If you need to yell to be heard in a loud setting, this is a sure sign the noise might damage your hearing. Heavy traffic, engines revving, power tools running, the loud stereo systems at movie theaters or live music concerts are all examples of instances when popping in the ear-plugs is a smart idea. Noise-canceling earphones are also a good option in certain situations, but may not fit in your pocket as easily as ear-plugs.
• If you take any medication, ask your doctor if it has any impact on hearing. high-frequency hearing loss can be triggered by at least 200 different kinds of medications. Even aspirin at high doses can injure your hearing. To discover if there are options less likely to injure your hearing, consult your doctor. If you can’t avoid using a particular medication, keep in close contact with your hearing care specialist for regular hearing loss and balance testing. Dealing with hearing loss early can help prevent further loss.
• Quieter things are better. Select the quietest product by examining the noise rating of the appliances. And don’t be scared to ask the restaurant manager to turn down the music if it’s difficult to hear your friends at dinner.
• When extracting earwax, never use a swab or any other small object. Your ability to hear becomes blunted when you jam old earwax against your eardrum. Carefully clean out excessive earwax with a washcloth after you shower, or ask your hearing professional about other ear irrigation techniques for getting rid of earwax without damaging your hearing.

Treatment For High-Frequency Hearing Loss

Hearing aids are currently the most effective method for dealing with high-frequency hearing loss. And there are various models to pick from because this is the most prevalent type of hearing loss. So that they are clearer to the listener, hearing aids can increase high pitched sounds. Several models are configurable and your hearing professional can help fine-tune them to improve your ability to hear those sounds at the right level, immediately addressing the level and extent of the hearing loss. For situations such as talking on the phone, listening to children, having dinner at a restaurant, or business meetings many hearing aids can be manipulated by your phone and have directional microphones for fine-tuning.

If you suspect that you may be dealing with high-frequency hearing loss, make an appointment for a hearing exam. If you want to improve your capacity to hear your grandchild’s precious one-liner, chances are there are individually designed answers for you.