That to me is why I think people should go to an ear-expert.
I was near-sighted all my life. To see across the room (or drive) I needed glasses, it was just focus correction. To sell me glasses the tech only needs to determine the lens which makes me see far. But every one of these eye-techs/docs (there are several sorts) gave me a GOOD eye exam, looking for things they can’t fix, “not really their business”, but their training and license requires they look for ALL problems and refer as indicated. (Basically the “MD-union” tolerates “mechanics” only if they refer all MD-treatable conditions to an MD.)
Couple years ago I was not seeing well and thought I needed different eye-glass lenses. The glasses-seller knew right away (but did a full exam anyway). My eyeballs were cloudy, cataracts. No glasses would make that any better! And I hadn’t figured it out on my own. He also examed for glaucoma and retina-rot. His prescription was to go to the cataract clinic for “possible cataracts”. Knowing the cataract-doc would again check for “all” troubles and then probably slip new lenses in my eyeballs (went great).
Ears: I too was referred for a head-scan because a neuroma was borderline possible (unexplained asymmetry). While I knew I heard lop-sided I had no idea about a growth on one ear-nerve. That’s pretty fixable, but you can’t diagnosis it at home with Google/Bing.
Maybe less than 5% of older folks with hearing loss have something an MD could treat. But those 5% should not be fooling around with OTC aids if there is a medically treatable condition. I trust my eye-glasses seller to advise on my eyes, and the audiologist to advise on my ears, before selling eye/ear-aids.