Hi guys. Rachel Cook, doctor of audiology at Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona, and in today's video, I'll be telling you the top three signs that you may have a hearing loss coming up.

As surprising as this may sound, you may not actually notice when you start to develop a hearing loss. This can occur for many reasons, but mostly has to do with the way that hearing loss often develops.

Given the nature of the cochlea, your hearing organ damage from aging and loud noises typically results in high frequency or high pitch hearing loss in the English language. A majority of consonant sounds that contribute to clarity of speech reside in these higher pitches. These are the sounds that go with letters, S, SH, FT, HP, and K.

These consonants allow us to separate words that are similar but differ by just one sound. This is the difference between words like fifth and sixth, or also like words, fat, sat and cat, because hearing loss can affect certain pitches differently without impacting hearing.

Overall, it can be kind of difficult to even tell you have a hearing loss sometimes partner that with the fact that your brain tries really, really hard to make up for missing information. This is typically by using context cues from the conversation and visual cues from people's faces.

For this reason, many people are often shocked to find out that they even have a hearing loss. That's why today I'll be telling you the three top signs that might suggest you may have a hearing loss.

But before we do that, if you could go ahead and give this video a thumbs up. It really helps bring videos like these to a wider audience. And if you could take a quick second, please go ahead and hit that subscribe button with notification bell so that you never miss any one of our newly released videos.

Now, the first sign that may suggest that you have a hearing loss is difficulty hearing dialogue on the television or the telephone dialogue on TV and on the phone can be tricky to separate out given the fact that generally speaking, all of the sounds are coming from the same speaker.

This can be combined with reduced visual cues because you can't see someone's face when you're on the phone with them, and dialogue on TV often occurs during the middle of an action scene or when the actor's back is turned.

The reduced clarity of dialogue on the phone may cause you to put your phone on speaker. Since this would allow you to significantly increase the volume level and use both ears to hear on the tv, you may feel the need to use closed captions, turn up the volume, or both. However, turning the volume up on the TV might make things louder but not necessarily clearer.

The second sign that could mean that you have a hearing loss is difficulty hearing others in background noise. In environments with high levels of background noise, the clarity components of speech become much more critical.

This is because background noise overall generally averages out to more of a low pitch sound. Therefore, we must use the high pitch information to separate out speech from that background noise.

Since high frequency hearing loss is common with aging and loud noise exposure, most people tend to have good low pitch hearing with difficulties hearing these high frequencies. This creates a situation where you can hear the background noise very well, but you can't hear the speech you want to hear.

When hearing loss reduces your ability to hear these clarity components of speech, background noise environments can become incredibly challenging. If you have a hearing loss, you may start noticing more difficulty in restaurants, churches, or group situations.

You may even find yourself subconsciously avoiding these social situations because of the increased difficulty in communicating effectively. If you catch yourself faking understanding what other people are saying and just kind of nodding along or relying way too much on being able to see the person's face to really understand what they're saying, then there's a good chance that you have a hearing loss.

And finally, the third major sign that you may have a hearing loss is when other people in your life start questioning your hearing. Circling back to the beginning of this video, your brain is super sharp and it will try doing everything that it can possibly do to overcome any gaps in missing information.

Because most people can adapt and adjust for some time, it can be difficult to even identify your own hearing loss. However, you may find that some of the people closest to you, like your spouse, your family members, your friends, or your coworkers, keep making comments.

The people closest to you might even seem rather annoyed after having to repeat themselves multiple times. You might even notice that these same individuals start saying things like, nevermind, or just forget it because you didn't know what they were saying the first or second time.

These breakdowns and communication can be frustrating for both parties, no doubt, and over time can result in some serious tension. Communication really is a two way street. So while you might not be noticing your own communication difficulties, it's extremely common for the people that you communicate with most often to notice.

They may recognize that you seem to be asking for recognition more often, that the TV volume is higher than where they find it comfortable, or that you're acting less engaged in noisy situations.

Now, I understand that it is human nature to defend ourselves against these claims. However, reports like these from the people that you spend the most time with should never be ignored. Untreated hearing loss is also the largest modifiable risk factor in the development of cognitive decline and dementia.

That being said, what should you do? If you or someone close to you starts to notice one of these top three signs that you might have hearing loss? The first step is always obtaining a comprehensive hearing evaluation.

During this evaluation, your ears should be checked and cleared of any ear wax. After that, a variety of tests using tones, words, and speech and background noise should be completed to determine your type and level of hearing loss and whether or not you might benefit from hearing treatment.

This series of tests can also help to refer you to the appropriate specialist if the cause of your hearing loss is something that's medically treatable. This can include things like a perforated eardrum, an ear infection, or middle ear conditions, such as Otis Sclerosis.

But what if your hearing loss is not able to be medically treated? Well, don't worry, because over 90% of hearing losses can be successfully treated through the use of well programmed hearing aids.

All levels of hearing difficulty are worth treating alongside a professional you trust and one that follows comprehensive best practices. Comprehensive best practices are a series of tests and measurements that should be completed before, during, and after being fit with hearing aids to ensure that every effort has been made to help you hear your very best.

These measures are critical to your success with hearing treatment. So be sure to familiarize yourself with these protocols by watching this video that I will have linked down in the description below.

And if you wanna find a provider that follows comprehensive best practices and will ensure that every effort has been made to help you hear your best, be sure to visit hearing up.com to check out best practice providers near you.

It's never easy to face that something might be wrong with our health, so you should feel good about completing the first step of recognizing that there's a problem, but now it's time to do something about it. So do your research on providers in your area and be sure to get your comprehensive hearing evaluation on the books.