Hi, would greatly appreciate if anyone could help me with the symbols on my audiogram.
I know the ] symbol is used for bone conduction, but I’m not sure what the hourglass/two triangles on top of each other means (or why most are fully shaded in, but one isn’t).
I’ve also just realised the line at the bottom at 100dB dips at 2kHz, instead of staying flat like on my right ear audiogram (normal hearing). Don’t suppose anyone knows what that represents?
Thanks for any help!
I’ll take a guess that the line that drops off at 2K is the UCL or Upper Comfort Level or Uncomfortable Loudness Level. It would make sense for it to be flat in a normal hearing ear.
Shaded symbols are a ‘false’ test result produced before the result was masked to obtain the real level.
They tend to occur where there’s a significant asymmetrical difference (your right Bone conduction result is way better than the left) and your better ear hears the presented level through transcranial transmission. The second presentation with the narrow band white masking noise produced the correct result (the unshaded X symbol). Half shaded symbols show presentation of masking, but where the result is unchanged.
Normally you’d record the masking level that elicited the steady masked response too.
Thank you Terost, MDB and Um_bongo!
That’s helped me make sense of it. I do remember thinking that I heard the tone, but definitely not through my left ear a few times while they were testing it unmasked - a weird sensation, but probably only because I was expecting it on that side!
Does make me wonder how useful I’d find bone conduction headphones, but then again, I want them mainly for safety when running, and I still enjoy music through my in ear headphones anyway, so I’ll probably give them a shot.
Thanks again!
The BC headphones would work fine except for sounds above 3khz you’d lose stereo perception due to the poorer performance of your left ear. Though your right cochlea might pick up the sounds to a lesser extent through your skull.
More importantly that’s a thorough audiogram, 4Khz bone conduction results are often ignored due to testing variability. Under our rules you’re not an immediate referral case but if you’ve got tinnitus or auditory perception/scrambling issues, I’d get checked out.
That’s reassuring to know that it’s thorough. I had it done this week at Specsavers when I realised that it had been three years since I’d seen an audiogist, and, thanks to this forum, that my experience with the one my GP referred me to was quite lacking.
(I did spend several days trying to get an appointment or referral back to the audiologist, but gave up after having no success booking an appointment with a GP or directly with the audiology service - which I could only access via calling a different GP practice, although the audiology service is technically a private provider, I think. Weirdly convoluted.)
Specsavers said they’d refer me back to my GP for follow up (although interestingly also said they wouldn’t usually recommend a hearing aid ‘yet’, but were glad that I found mine helpful) when I said that I was pretty sure I’d had some level of hearing loss since at least my early teens, and possibly even since birth. This wasn’t investigated when I first got my hearing tested and hearing aid fitted, so I’m glad that it might be followed up now.
I suspect that I’ve had at least moderate high frequency loss most of my life - I’ve never noticed a sudden difference in hearing, but have known since I was about 12-13 that I could only hear a watch ticking with my left ear if it was pressed against the watch, whereas my right ear could hear it across the room, to the point I had to leave it outside my room so I could sleep! It will be interesting to see if anything turns up - and if my GP can refer me to the general Leeds NHS audiology, rather than the service I went to before.
I’m definitely going to try out some BC headphones - looking forward to seeing if I can pick out any of the high frequencies travelling to my right ear!
