Overview
Your healthcare provider will ask about your symptoms and do a physical exam. They’ll check for signs of infection or other issues that could cause hearing loss. They may do a CT scan (computed tomography scan) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) if you hurt your ear or they think you may have a tumor. Your provider may refer you to an audiologist (or you may contact one on your own) who’ll do specific hearing tests.
Common hearing tests include:
- Pure-tone testing: This common hearing test finds the quietest volume you can hear at each pitch. You’ll wear headphones or earplugs to hear the sounds and speech. You’ll also wear a device on your head for bone conduction testing. The combination of testing with headphones/earplugs and bone conduction testing helps your audiologist determine which type of hearing loss you have.
- Otoacoustic emissions test (OAE): Audiologists use this test to check your inner ear function.
- Tympanometry: This test checks how well your eardrum moves. Audiologists may do tympanometry tests to see if you have a ruptured eardrum, fluid in your middle ear or wax in your ear canal.
What are stages of hearing loss?
If you have a hearing test, your audiologist will share test results and explain what they mean. Often, hearing loss is classified as the degree of loss. The degree of loss is how loud sounds need to be for you to hear them. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the degrees of loss are:
- Normal.
- Slight.
- Mild.
- Moderate.
- Moderately severe.
- Severe.
- Profound.
Symptoms
When to see a doctor
Complications
- High blood pressure.
- Diabetes.
- Heart failure.
- Some types of heart valve disease.
Prevention
- Control high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.
- Don't smoke or use tobacco.
- Eat a diet that's low in salt and saturated fat.
- Exercise at least 30 minutes a day on most days of the week unless your health care team says not to.
- Get good sleep. Adults should aim for 7 to 9 hours daily.
- Maintain a healthy weight.
- Reduce and manage stress.
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