well i got my test today and was told i am borderline. she put a thing in both ears that produced tones, she did this 3 times in each due to conflicting results caused by me being borderline, her words. then she put me in the booth and said different stuff i had to repeat at different volumes. she had to repeat some words at the softer settings, then the tones.
the thing is i said i had issue when there was background noise and yet the test were all preformed with dead silence. does this sound right? she is a audiologist and didn’t try to force anything on me so i should be happy but now i think i’m just crazy.
don
Hearing tests are done in a soundproof booth so she can better tell what you can hear. Did she do a speech comprehension test. Can you possibly post your audiogram results?
sorry for the delay, well i went to her office today, i left my card there, and asked her for a copy of the test. they were both in a different office so there mailing it to me. the funny thing is, i asked her for it and she said it was normal, but she said it was borderline after the test. so i dont know if she is confused or what. my wife said to go somewhere else if i wanted to but i dont want to go looking for an issue if there isnt. the one thing she did say was the static sound i get when my kids hit that one pitch needs to be watched if it gets worse.
i think i did this right. what do ya think.
that was the results for the test were she put the thing in my ear.
the chart is hard to read but hear it goes,
l r
250 5 5
500 5 5
1000 5 10
2000 15 5
4000 20 15
8000 10 10
I don’t understand all the stuff at the top, but in terms of the main audiogram that doesn’t look “borderline” to me, that looks like great hearing! The problem is that it’s the ability to hear in background noise that goes first, any hearing loss and you lose that ability to filter off one sound from another, and hear desired sound that is slightly quieter than the undesired noise, something that people with perfect hearing can do.
Anything up to 20dB loss is considered “normal” hearing in adults. In children there is a special category of loss 15-25 called “minimal”. I don’t know anyone that would prescribe for that loss unless perhaps you also had auditory processing disorder or they were treating tinnitus (noises in the ears) cos the downsides of hearing aids would likely outweigh the benefit.
Something you might like to look at and take advice on is the Phonak iSense, designed for auditory processing disorders, one-sided deafness and minimal hearing losses, it’s a system with a transmitter that picks up the sounds you want to hear and transmits them to a small earpiece so you don’t hear the background noise at all any more. For example, if you need to hear a single person talking in a room full of others chatting, you point the microphone at the person you are listening to and it will pick up their voice alone and transmit it straight to your ears.
thanks for looking. the real issue is the background noise. i will be talking to my wife and as soon as there is another noise i have to ask her to repeat herself. then there is the static noise i get in my left ear at certain times. maybe ill let it go for now. see if it gets worse.
Background noise always cause inappropriate results. According to me the best way of going through a hearing test is an online hearing test. The best thing about online hearing test is that people can have hearing test at their own wish and don’t need to go to an audiologists and can have hearing test at home only.
The results on the top of your message appear to be results of Otoacoustic Emissions Testing (OAEs). This testing assess how well the hair cells of your inner ear are working. This test is terribly sesitive to noises WITHIN the body (breathing and such), so her having to redo the test is fairly common.
Your hearing test results look good tho, I wouldnt call it “borderline”. There is a range of normal 0 dB to 20 dB (some people use 25 dB).
You did mention some “static noise”. Is that in your ears all the time, like ringing? In one ear or both?
Do you have a history of noise exposure? Any history of head trauma (car accident, sports incident)?
havent been on here, sorry for the missed posts. dr amy. the static in the L ear is their when i reach a certain pitch in my or outside voices. i play the bag pipes and have been a member of the fdny ems for 18 years, sirens and street noise. with the static i also get a “clogged feeling” like when you have a cold.
don
ROBERTHAMDEN: Your SRT doesn’t make sense. It should be more around 40 or so in each ear. If your SRT is around 10 or 15 then your Speech Discrim should be more like 95 to 100%. Also, I don’t know why they masked if both ears are about the same. I think you should go see someone else, preferrably someone who doesn’t advertise cheap hearing aids in your newspaper.
I am sorry if the post was not very clear. What I meant to say that one can have almost perfect hearing test through an online hearing test as they can have it at such a time when there is no unwanted noise nearby.
Hearing ABC: my loss is profound. In order to take an on line hearing test I would have to turn up the speakers so loud that the wall of my house would vibrate, hopefully the speakers wouldn’t blow up. So back ground noise would be at a minimal. Still think I would get the same results as when I go to an audiologist?
AND as Mr Hask and others have duly noted the veracity of such tests is immensely dubious. Background noise is merely one possible cause of testing error.
The biggest cause of online hearing tests being inaccurate is calibration errors. They are calibrated generally by an “individual with normal hearing” which is a dubious thing, then there are variations in quality of sound card, headphones, etc. Even getting an audiometer (proper machine for doing hearing tests) calibrated to make sure it’s accurate costs a lotta lotta bucks!
