Questions to Ask About Hearing Loss

If you have been noticing some issues with your hearing, you need to get yourself an appointment to see your audiologist and get a hearing test done. There are several types of hearing tests out there, but when you go, you need to bring a list of questions with you to ensure that you are asking the right questions during your appointment.

Not only will you need to think about coming back to these questions later on, but you will also need to make sure that you can remember what was said during the appointment, too.

You're doing something good for your hearing health when you are proactive, and you book an appointment to see an audiologist. There Is every chance that you'll need hearing aids, and the sooner you ask about this the better.

When you go into your first appointment, you'll talk to your audiologist about your history and your health, you'll have a physical exam of the ear – inside and out – and you'll go through a series of tests to check your hearing and your speech comprehension. You can ask as many questions as you want, and once the audiologist reviews the test results, you can get some answers about your hearing. Let's take a look at some of the most important questions that you could ask:

What type of hearing loss do I have?

This is quite a good question to ask your audiologist as they will be able to tell you whether your hearing is going to change or get worse. There are three different types of hearing loss and understanding the type that you have will make a big difference to your comfort and ability to continue to hear.

Sensorineural hearing loss occurs as a result of trauma to the ear or head, and it's often a permanent hearing loss that can be treated with hearing aids. Conductive hearing loss prevents sound traveling effectively through the ear into the eardrum. This is usually due to a blockage and can be caused by something as simple as earwax. Mixed hearing loss is the last type and is a mix of the two above!

Do both my ears have the same hearing loss?

For some people, only one ear has hearing loss and requires a hearing aid. For others, they need hearing aids for both ears. The ears hear differently from one another, so it's entirely possible that you can have hearing loss in one ear and not the other.

Do I need two hearing aids or one?

When you go for your hearing test, your audiologist will be able to tell you whether you need more than one hearing aid. They have the answers about your hearing abilities on the test in front of them and they will be able to advise you on how many hearing aids you need as well as which type would be the best for your hearing. Almost 90% of people who need hearing aids require two, and so it's worth asking first!

Which hearing aids should I get?

Your audiologist will be able to walk you through the features and exciting things on offer for all different hearing aid types, but it's worth asking which ones would best suit your hearing needs before you dive in and pick just any!