According to one recent survey, nearly 30% of people have gone more than ten years without getting a hearing test. Sofia is one of those people. She goes to her annual doctor’s appointments, she sees a dentist every six months, and she gets the oil changed in her car every 3000 miles. But she can’t remember the last time she had a hearing test or went through any sort of accurate hearing assessment.
Hearing exams are essential for a wide variety of reasons, detecting early symptoms of hearing loss is probably the most significant one. Sophia can keep her hearing healthy for a lot longer by knowing how often to get her ears checked.
How Often Do You Need to Have a Hearing Test?
If the last time Sofia had a hearing test was a decade ago, we might be worried. Or we may think it’s completely normal. Our reaction, and the reaction of her hearing specialist, probably will vary depending on how old she is. That’s because hearing specialists have different recommendations based on age.
- If you are over fifty years old: The universal suggestion is that anybody over the age of fifty should get hearing checks annually. Loss of hearing is more likely to impact your life as you age because noise damage starts to add up. There are also numerous other factors that can impact your hearing.
- It’s usually recommended that you undergo a hearing exam about every three years. Of course, if you think you should get your hearing checked more frequently, that’s also fine. The bare minimum is every three years. If you are exposed to loud noise regularly or work at a job where noise is commonplace, you should decide to get tested more often. There’s no reason not to do it, it’s painless and simple.
As far as your hearing is concerned, more often is certainly better. Since you last had a hearing exam, you might have new injury you should know about, so more frequent hearing tests might be helpful.
Signs You Should Get Your Hearing Checked
There are certainly other times besides your annual hearing test that you may want to make an appointment with your hearing professional. In some cases, you start to notice some signs of hearing loss. And in those cases, it’s usually a good plan to promptly get in touch with a hearing specialist and schedule a hearing exam.
Some of the signs that might prompt you to get a hearing test could include:
- Continually asking people to slow down or repeat themselves during a conversation.
- Having a very hard time understanding people when talking on the phone, mobile or otherwise
- Cranking your music to extremely high volumes (if your neighbors start complaining, that’s a good sign you need to see a hearing specialist right away).
- It’s normal for hearing loss in the high pitched register to go first and because consonants are in a higher pitched register than vowels, they usually fail first.
- Your hearing is muted like there is water in your ears.
- Difficulty hearing conversations in noisy situations.
A strong sign that right now is the best time to get a hearing exam is when the warning signs start to add up. The more frequently you get your hearing examined, the sooner you’ll know what’s going on with your hearing.
Hearing Exams, What Are The Advantages?
There are plenty of reasons why Sofia may be late in having her hearing exam. Maybe she hasn’t thought about it. Perhaps she’s just avoiding thinking about it. But getting your hearing checked on the recommended schedule has concrete benefits.
Even when your hearing is completely healthy, a hearing exam can help create a standard reading, which makes deviations in the future simpler to detect. You can protect your hearing better if you catch it before it becomes an issue.
The reason for regular hearing testing is that someone like Sofia will be able to detect issues before her hearing is impaired permanently. Early diagnosis by a hearing exam can help your hearing stay healthy for a long time. Considering the impact of hearing loss on your overall health, that’s important.