The way you laid out the numbers, it is a bit difficult to compare right to left.
You have bad hearing through most ranges and pretty much in both ears, although the LEFT ear is worse than the RIGHT.
I would think (personal opinion) by the looks of the numbers that you would have difficulty listening to certain people in certain surroundings. I think you would also not hear certain things, beeps, buzzers, etc which may be on a microwave, an oven, computer, etc.
It appears that hearing aids would help you quite a bit. In the meantime, try to hear people who are talking to you in your right ear. Let them know that you are hard of hearing more from your left ear.
That is my own personal opinion and I am nobody.:eek:
bherring is correct. your loss is very mild and almost nonexistant in your right. no friggin idea why Renovator would say your hearing is bad at all, especially in both ears. your right is almost perfect and your left isn’t that bad at all
Maybe you weren’t aware that from 0db to 20db loss is considered normal or average
hearing?
An Audi or ENT would probably describe his right ear as being above average or perfect especially if he’s above 25 years of age.
His bad ear only shows a mild loss at 750hz to 1500hz with the other frequencies being normal. I don’t know if an Audi would even agree to fit a person with such a mild loss in a narrow frequency band. It might even make his hearing seem worse.:eek:
Yes, you are right, Don.
Well, that is how I learn when to keep my mouth (keyboard) shut! I agree, my lower hearing is considered really good, I guess, considering that I am a 54 year-old male. I suppose anything less than 15 or so is good for me, eh? In that case, my real problem is somewhere between 1.5k and 6k, but since it starts somewhere between 1.5 and 2 with a real nose-dive drop-off, I suspect that there could be a bit of tones in there that I can hear well which are also being amplified. Water dripping and crumpling up paper is the loudest for me, almost deafening (almost).
When I see the numbers now, they seem lower than what I thought they were, had they been lowered for the bad ear, or were they like that from the get-go? Maybe, in light of your comment they suddenly just LOOK lower.
He gave you a medical clearance form because you do in fact have a hearing loss on that worse side. So his job is to make sure there is no medical (curable) reason for the loss.
Its worth mentioning that I have 2 patients with this type of unilateral loss. Both wear a hearing aid and have noted improvement. One is a teacher and acute hearing is imperative to her job. The other is an executive and hearing is very important to him as well. They both noted difficulty hearing only in noisy situations…
The loss in your “worse” ear could be helped by a hearing aid but it would not normally be recommended unless there are significant issues realting to your mild loss.
Being 17 years of age, the loss in your left ear will likely require some assistance in the future.
I do use loud machine noise due to workshops in school building pros for set setting woods (theatre acting). And in all my classes I do have sign language interpreters in them.
If you do not currently protect your hearing, I would highly advise it. You may be able to stop any deterioration of your hearing by being cautious. Loud music is the big problem as people do it willingly.
Why would you be getting sign language help with a loss like this? You don’t really need it.
The Spondee scores refer to the Spondee word lists that your audiologist uses: they give an idea of the amount of speech you understand at given input levels.
As has been mooted on here, you might benefit from some assistance in your poorer ear, but the degree of benefit, except in noisy situations, may be very limited.
Certainly protect your hearing if you are being exposed to loud noise, but as it stands the loss isn’t indicative of noise damage. Unless the loss is conductive, its possibly more like a congenital disorder (birth/ genetic), trauma or an early viral infection (scarlet fever, chickenpox): these can result in low frequency dead-spots which give a loss a bit like that.