Ensuring healthy living is one of the most crucial things in life. Primarily, healthy living involves watching what you eat and how often you eat it. For instance, it is advisable to avoid fast foods since they carry high cholesterol levels. This cholesterol harms the body as it can lead to blood vessel blockages or surround the heart, preventing it from pumping the blood well.

Besides healthy eating, it is also crucial to regularly attend medical checkups to guarantee wellness. Some illnesses strike without warning, and by the time they do, they may have done significant damage. Also, if you notice changes in the way your body functions, it is best to seek medical advice. It would be wrong to wait until the symptoms started getting serious. Unfortunately, this is what happens with most people. However, this tradition should change, and you should start making appointments with your doctors, preferably annually. The good news is that you can test your hearing using Amplifon’s online hearing tests.

Low-to-Serious Hearing Audience

Also known as reverse-slope hearing loss, low-frequency hearing loss involves one of the rarest forms of hearing loss. It consists of a condition where an individual experiences an inability to listen to low-pitched or deep sounds. Usually, people suffering from this condition have more difficulty hearing men’s voices than children’s or women’s. Also, you will have problems differentiating between vowel sounds since they have a lower pitch compared to consonants.

Consequently, you will also struggle to talk on the phone if you have low hearing loss. People with this condition will often ask their callers to speak up. However, people with low hearing loss may entirely miss some sounds, such as an airplane, truck, or the low rumble of a motor vehicle’s engine.

Low hearing loss may be present at birth or be a genetic issue. Other causes of this condition include childhood illnesses such as measles. However, most cases of low hearing loss are caused by Meniere’s disease. This involves an autoimmune disorder causing episodes of tinnitus, dizziness, and hearing loss. If left untreated, low hearing loss may evolve, affect higher-pitched sounds, or progress and become a more severe condition. Treatment of low-frequency hearing loss usually involves hearing aids to help amplify low-pitch sounds. The hearing aids are also designed to prevent high-pitched sounds from being uncomfortably loud and causing irritation. Since this condition is rare and complex, doctors will undertake extra trial and error when programming to guarantee the accuracy of the diagnosis.

Severe hearing loss occurs when one can hear specific sounds very poorly. If you have severe hearing loss, you will not be able to listen to people speak using their normal voices. Usually, you will hear only very loud voices. Severe hearing loss is different in each person; thus, it can occur in people in different ways and at any age. This condition is treatable; therefore, you should work with your doctors to get the most out of your hearing.

While babies might be born with the condition, adults and children can get it at any point in their lives. Severe hearing loss can be long-lasting or brief, occur over many years or suddenly, or be in both or one of your ears. Since human DNA contains numerous genes that help build the structures used in hearing, an issue with any of them can cause the development of this condition in the baby. Another cause of severe hearing loss in kids is if the expectant mother has infections such as cytomegalovirus or takes medicine for tuberculosis or cancer.

Additionally, you may also acquire the disease following causes such as head injuries, noises, clogs, or conditions like ear infections or brain tumours.

What is RNID?    

The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) is an organisation that provides people with tinnitus or hearing loss and the deaf with practical advice on tinnitus, hearing aids, and hearing loss. RNID provides the following online:

• Option to arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) call with an advisor
• Information tool where one can ask for more help or answer a few questions to get information.
• A hearing checker allows you to discover if you are suffering from hearing loss.
• Web chat with a professional advisor

How can RNID assist the deaf?

• Provides care services for the deaf.
• Introduce lasting changes in education for deaf young people and children.
• There are disability and deafness consultation and training courses available.
• Encourage deaf people to participate in the organization’s employment programs.
• Conduct technical, medical, and social research for the deaf.
• Facilitate communication through services such as sign language interpreters.

How can I perform a free hearing test to assess my current hearing efficiency?

Frequently examining your hearing quality is a crucial prevention measure for your health and well-being. You can check out Amplifon, which provides an easy and quick hearing test to discover your hearing ability. You can take this test at any time, especially if you notice sudden changes in your hearing or suspect that you might suffer from hearing loss. This way, you can make an informed decision on whether you need professional attention.

The Amplifon test will only take about five minutes and will require you to have earphones. It is advisable not to use a computer speaker when taking this test. If the results show that you might have hearing loss, you should visit an audiologist for a more detailed examination. For instance, your audiologist can perform a rnid-hearing test to assess the eardrum’s mobility and the middle ear’s condition.

How many different types of hearing loss are there?

Tinnitus

Tinnitus is when you experience ringing noises in one or both of your ears. An external sound does not cause these noises; thus, other people around you cannot hear them. This condition is common, especially among the elderly, affecting approximately 20% of the population. Usually, tinnitus occurs following an underlying condition like an issue with the circulatory system, an ear injury, or an age-related hearing loss. Therefore, most people will improve the situation by treating the underlying cause. While some people are not bothered by tinnitus, you should seek medical help if it disrupts your everyday life. For example, see your audiologist if

You develop depression or anxiety because of your tinnitus.

You experience dizziness or hearing loss associated with the tinnitus.

You develop the condition after the flu, and the tinnitus does not clear within a week.

Deafness

Deafness involves a situation where you experience a total or partial inability to hear sounds. Deafness can be classified as severe, mild, profound, or moderate.

• With mild hearing loss, you will have difficulty understanding speech, especially in a noisy environment.
• A hearing aid can help people with moderate deafness.
• When communicating with others, severely deaf people will rely entirely on lip reading.
• Profoundly deaf individuals will hear nothing at all and depend on sign language or lip-reading to understand a speech.

The causes of deafness may include illnesses such as mumps, syphilis, chicken pox, diabetes, cytomegalovirus, and sickle cell disease. Note that the inner ear is home to very delicate bones in the body. Therefore, damage to the middle ear or the eardrum can lead to deafness or hearing loss in various ways.