Why Can’t I Hear The TV But I Can Hear The Clock Ticking?

If you have a hearing problem, it could be a problem with your ear's ability to conduct sound or your brain's ability to translate signals or both depending on your specific symptoms.

Your ability to process sound is determined by several variables such as overall health, age, brain function, and genetics. If you have the annoying experience being able to hear a person's voice but not processing or understanding what that person is saying you may be dealing with one or more of the following types of hearing loss.

Conductive Hearing Loss

You may be experiencing conductive hearing loss if you have to continuously swallow and yank on your ears while saying with growing irritation "There's something in my ear". Problems with the middle and outer ear like fluid in the ear, a buildup of wax, ear infections, or eardrum damage all reduce the ear's ability to conduct sound to the brain. Depending on the severity of issues going on in your ear, you could be able to understand some people, with louder voices, versus catching partial words from others talking in normal or lower tones.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Where conductive hearing loss can be caused by outer- and middle-ear issues, Sensorineural hearing loss affects the inner ear. Sounds to the brain can be blocked if the auditory nerve or the hair like nerves are injured. Voices may sound slurred or unclean to you, and sounds can sound as either too low or too high. You're suffering with high frequency hearing loss, if you have a hard time hearing women and children's voices or cannot distinguish voices from the background noise.