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Signs of Hearing Loss

If you have hearing loss you may experience the following signs and symptoms:

  • Speech, especially children’s voices, and other sounds are muffled
  • Communicating is difficult in a crowd or against background noise as you cannot hear others speaking
  • You need to ask people to repeat themselves a few times
  • You frequently need to tell people to speak more slowly and clearly
  • Loved ones often complain you have the TV/radio etc. turned to a very high volume
  • You frequently make excuses to avoid social situations because you are afraid you will not be able to hear people
  • You feel you cannot participate in conversations with others as you often have to “pretend” to hear so you start to avoid friends
  • Often people with hearing loss find they can still communicate fairly well in one to one situations and only struggle in groups or crowded, noisy settings. For this reason, and because hearing loss takes time to develop, people only realise what they have been missing once they start using hearing aids.