Hearing loss is a gradual process, and sometimes it sneaks up on you without you noticing. You may unknowingly adjust to not being able to hear certain sounds that you used to hear quite well. Often, when people get hearing aids for the first time, they’re surprised and delighted to rediscover sounds that they hadn’t even realized they were missing. Let’s go over some beautiful sounds you may be missing.
About Hearing Loss
First, let’s discuss what happens in your body when you’re going through hearing loss, and why you lose some sounds but not others. In your inner ear, in an organ called the cochlea, there are tiny sensory cells that transmit sound waves to the brain. You have thousands of these cells, and each one resonates to certain frequencies of sound. The cells closer to the opening of the cochlea, which sound waves pass over first, pick up higher frequencies and the cells deeper in the inner ear pick up lower frequencies.
In the case of age-related hearing loss, or presbycusis, and noise-induced hearing loss, the sensory cells begin to die off. As you lose the cells in greater numbers, you lose the ability to perceive the frequencies those cells resonate to, because the dead cells are not transmitting those frequencies to the brain. The cells at the front of the cochlea, the higher-frequency cells, are usually the first to die, so the high-frequency sounds are the first ones you lose.
Some Sounds You May Be Missing
By some estimates, only one in five people with hearing loss seek treatment, and many of them wait ten years or more before doing so. If you’re experiencing hearing loss but haven’t begun treatment yet, there are a number of sounds that you may not hear anymore, and what’s more, you may not even notice that you don’t hear them.
Birdsong
New hearing aid users rave about being able to hear birds singing again. Since birdsong is a higher-frequency sound, it’s one you stop hearing pretty early in the development of hearing loss, and it’s easy to forget that the trees in the park or your backyard were once alive with music. Rediscovering birdsong is truly a joyful experience.
Music
You can turn on the radio in your car or shuffle a playlist on your phone and hear the tune fairly well, but you might not realize just how many parts of music you’re missing. Since the high frequencies go away first, you might hear the bass, not realizing that there are beautiful melodies being played by higher-pitched instruments. Perhaps you’ve subconsciously started preferring male singers over female singers due to the male singers having lower-pitched voices. That may change once you can hear a female singer better.
Alarms and Rings
This is one you may have noticed: your phone and the appliances in your home, such as the microwave, use high frequencies for their beeps and rings, so you may have been missing notifications and alarms. You won’t miss out on important notifications with hearing aids.
Seeking Help for Hearing Loss
As mentioned above, many people who could benefit from hearing loss treatment wait years before seeking help, but as we’ve discussed, there’s a whole world of sounds out there that could be passing you by, not to mention the added struggle of communication and socializing.
Our skilled team at Aaron's Hearing Aid & Audiology Center is excited to begin your hearing loss journey with you. If you’re ready to hear the birds singing again, call us and schedule an appointment.