With me, it was during an outdoor worship service when the pastor was talking to the kids and was interrupted by a cicada. They talked about them for a while. I could not hear it at all.
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Waking up morning with hearing gone 80%
Since that day.
When my wife said, you need hearing aids.
I said no she said yes.
I got hearing aids.
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Same here.
I knew it was coming, she decided when.
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I was working in a shop at the time and kept asking customers to repeat themselves, yet my colleague was shouting out the answer to the customers queries from an office 20meters away. How could she hear but I couldn’t? That’s what prompted me plus all my family are also deaf 
I honestly had no idea until one of my family member who I hadn’t seen for a long time took me to the doctors and that is when they said I need to go and see the audiologist.
I had already been under ENT for many years ie., tonsil removal, grommets put in my ears, and I also had conductive hearing loss in my right ear at that time which went after my glue ear was sorted out.
I was told I needed them for a long time because my speech is badly affected, but unfortunately no one did anything about it so I ended up suffering without realising I was struggling.
Now I understand why people at school was always shouting at me, telling me to speak properly, telling me not to talk because I cannot speak properly… I had no idea what they was talking about, but now I do. I was roughly 10-11 years old when I found out I needed hearing aids and I refused to wear them. I stayed unaided for 20 years and now wear them all the time.
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When I put an earbud in my left ear only and wondered why I couldn’t hear the music. Flipped it to the right ear, which was fine, then back to left which I could hardly hear. Turned to my wife and was like wtf is going on?? After heavy dose of steroids (which suck big time) and an mri, it turned out to be a neuroma, so there’s that…. At least it hasn’t grown in almost 2 years….
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For me it was the increasing difficulty understanding what my wife was saying to me, especially in noisier environments like at a grocery store. She has a high pitched voice and I have high frequency hearing loss. I found myself often asking her to repeat herself then trying to watch her face as I quickly ran through the possibilities of what I’d heard. It took a lot of concentration and was getting bothersome.
The first time I put in hearing aids, it felt like I’d gone from a dimly lit room into the sunshine. With properly fit and tuned hearing aids I can understand my wife clearly and without effort (when I want to of course). 
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Difficulty understanding mumbling people and in noisy environments like crowded restaurants gave it away for me.
To make a long story short - I was in grade 4. Teacher noticed I was having difficulties focusing on her teaching despite me sitting in the front row. During a P/T interview, she recommended I see an audiologist as she believed I had a hearing loss issue.
Turns out, she was right, and once I got the hearing aids, they put me into an individual education plan to help me reach the levels that other students were already at. I was loaned an FM system by every school I went to, and had the school board audiologist come out and do programming for me to help adjust the FM system in learning environments.
It was really neat because the audiologist would tell all my classmates what she was doing, and everyone wanted their turn on the FM system.
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Didn’t know until I tried it, which was 10 years after my diagnosis as an adult, because all medical professionals told me it wasn’t necessary. Cried everyday the first week I trialed because I never knew the world was supposed to sound so differently, and from sadness that it took this long; i have a congenital defect (issue was actually identified early in my life but was dismissed).
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With me I was 11-12 yrs old. My parents had just got the telephone, when I answered it I couldn’t hear using my L) ear…
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Mid-thirties when I couldn’t hear the squealing of my dictaphone when the batteries went dead. Not a surprise since my Dad, Grandmother, and various aunts, uncles and cousins had difficulties.
I worked in an office as a manager. During meetings, I’d have staff sitting next to me that would whisper in my ear (probably just talking to me!). I just assumed they wanted confirmation of something so I would just smile and nod. Well one of my direct reports when off and did something they should not have. When I questioned them, they said I approved it at the meeting! After that I decided to get a hearing test, well that was that!
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20 meters!? check around your work place, quick! there must be some kind of bug wired somewhere!
I kept saying “what?” when my SO spoke to me. Took some tests, mulled over it for two years. I was just fitted last Monday.
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I slept through a fire alarm that went off in the room next to my bedroom (the door was closed) in my apartment. The fire department was already by the house by the time I woke up.
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It seems like everyone knew but me. The complaint I had which triggered motion toward treatment was my tinnitus. I mentioned it was driving me crazy to my primary care physician. He referred me to a major ENT hospital. They diagnosed me and then scared me out of treatment with a predictive estimate of the HA costs. It took almost a year for me to work my way around to finding treatment.
WH
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I owned a retail store and found that I was always asking women to repeat what they had said. Same with wife.
Our town had a health street fair and I went into a free field hearing test. I did and the results indicated that I should have a full hearing work up.
I called the VA and they jumped on the problem.
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My wife knew long before I did. It just didn’t register with me that I could have hearing loss. Then one night we were standing on the front porch and she said, wow the crickets are really loud tonight. Then she looked at me and said, you don’t hear them do you? Shortly after that I got a hearing test and now I’ve been wearing HAs since 2012. Now I can hear crickets and lots of other things I didn’t know I wasn’t hearing.
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