Understanding Your Hearing Loss

At Elevate Hearing, our goal is to keep hearing aids out of drawers and in your ears, by ensuring they are as helpful as possible.

One of the key factors to success is understanding your hearing loss and using that information to select the best devices and treatment plan for your needs. When your hearing aids match the hearing challenges you experience, they become essential to your daily life.

At Elevate Hearing, we offer a two-month hearing aid trial period during which we will check in with follow-up appointments and take care of any concerns that arise during your adaptation period. During these two months you will come in for hearing aid check-ups to discuss your progress and make any necessary adjustments to the hearing aids at our hearing clinic.

This is how Elevate Hearing approaches hearing care. And it is why we help people have better success with their hearing aids.

Understanding hearing loss

What is hearing loss?

Hearing loss is experienced when an individual is not able to hear sounds as well as people with “normal” hearing. Approximately 54% of Canadians over the age of 40 experience hearing loss to some degree.

Although it is common, hearing loss isn’t as simple as “you have it or you don’t,” and everyone experiences it differently. Some people may struggle to hear lower-pitched sounds, while others may not be able to hear sounds at a higher pitch. Some people may experience more difficulty than others for a given degree of hearing loss, depending on their listening needs and lifestyle.

You may have noticed that you need to watch TV at a higher volume, or you may find it difficult to follow conversations in certain environments or when certain people are speaking. Some challenges are more common than others, but there isn’t one uniform way that hearing loss is experienced.

Types of hearing loss

Hearing loss can affect one ear or both ears. It can range from mild to profound, often with different pitches affected by varying degrees of loss.

There are three main types of hearing loss that describe the place in the ear that is damaged or affected:

Conductive hearing loss: In the outer ear or middle ear, for example wax plugging the ear canal.

Sensorineural hearing loss: In the inner ear or related to the connections between the ears and brain. This is the most common type of hearing loss.

Mixed: A combination of both conductive and sensorineural hearing loss.

It is our goal to understand your type of the hearing loss during our hearing test. This information will help us to give you the best options for care.

What causes hearing loss

Many different factors can contribute to hearing loss. During your hearing test, we will discuss your lifestyle, health, and noise history. This information will provide clues into the causes and nature of your hearing loss.

Family History/Genetics: There may be a family history of hearing loss, resulting in hearing loss with increasing age.

Medical History: Your overall health plays a significant role in your hearing health. Ear infections can cause damage and lead to hearing loss. Certain diseases, such as meningitis or chickenpox, can cause diminished hearing health, and other medical conditions such as diabetes and sleep apnea have been correlated with hearing loss.

Medications: Some medications (called ototoxic medications, where “oto” refers to ears) can contribute to damage to the ears.

Noise Exposure:

• Work Noise Exposure: Occupations that require consistent exposure to loud environments or loud noises from things like power tools or sirens can diminish your hearing over time.
• Recreational/Hobby Noise Exposure: Your personal noise history is another key factor. Loud noises can cause irreparable damage to the ear. Attending noisy events, such as concerts or sporting events, can damage your hearing over time. Participating in motorsports and practicing hobbies that use power tools can lead to hearing loss.
• Extreme Noise: Even a one-time exposure to an intense sound, like a gunshot or a firecracker, can cause noise trauma that results in permanent hearing loss.

This list isn’t exhaustive – there are many factors that can contribute to hearing loss and a lot of different ways that hearing loss can be experienced. This is why it is crucial for you to understand your hearing loss before deciding on a solution.

How to understand hearing loss

Get a hearing test

A hearing test is the first step in determining if you have a hearing loss and what the causes of your hearing issues could be. We also try to connect the impacts of your hearing loss with the challenges you face in your daily life.

An untreated hearing impairment can limit learning potential, reduce work performance, cause social anxiety and isolation, and can even increase the risk of dementia in some people. Using a hearing aid in the early stages of hearing loss may help reduce these risks.

Review your results with a hearing care professional

Following your test, our Elevate Hearing audiologists will review the test results with you. If you have a hearing loss that can be helped by hearing aids, we will provide a thorough consultation and provide recommendations for treatment based on your hearing loss and your specific hearing challenges.

“Cherry on the cake is both their wonderful receptionist Stacey and the new beautifully designed office. I highly recommend both Praise and Charles and Elevate Hearing; you will be very well served!” 

Dr. Joan Robillard, retired Family Physician