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Not only is disabling hearing loss more common than most people likely assume, impacting more than 13% of all U.S. adults over the age of 18, but those who suffer from it are surprisingly reticent to seek help. Studies show that among those who wear a hearing aid they delayed an average of seven years between first suspecting that they may have trouble hearing and finally committing to wearing a hearing aid.
Why do people delay?
Many reasons contribute to this. First, hearing loss most often comes on so gradually that it may be difficult to even recognize. You likely will not even notice if you slowly begin to concentrate more make out what someone is saying to you. It might happen infrequently enough that it is simple to attribute it to background noise. It might happen subtly enough that you learn to fill in the blanks so seamlessly that you hardly recognize that you are doing so. You may just become accustomed to turning up the radio or asking people to repeat themselves. Once the habits form and become normalized, there will likely not be a single definitive moment at which you come to peace with the discomfort of accepting a new normal.
But left untreated hearing loss frequently spirals into feelings of isolation and depression, which often compound into disorientation and anxiety. There is no good reason to learn to live feeling cutoff from friends and family and colleagues.
Why do people make excuses?
We all commonly live at a pace that does not allow much downtime to adapt or recalibrate our evolving needs. Our schedules and responsibilities to others both personal and professional do not give us the time to adapt to, let alone intentionally consider our needs. It is not uncommon at all to block out our intuitions and deny when we are coming down with a cold or a new coworker’s jokes make us uncomfortable. Keeping up with society’s demands requires us to downplay our intuitions.
Admitting a problem means you become accountable to addressing it. Dealing with a problem necessitates time and effort. So we all learn to constantly and subconsciously tabulate the cost-benefit ratios of learning to live a problem versus directly it. But your hearing health directly corresponds to your overall health and sense of well-being. Your hearing health in fact is your overall health. There should be no question about whether or not it is worth the investment.
The Excuses
Most often someone will say “I can hear just fine.” This fundamental denial of the problem’s very existence can most easily be overcome by making an appointment for an evaluation with a trained professional. One cannot deny the objective data.
People will downplay the severity of the problem saying “it’s not that bad. I don’t need help yet.” Unlike the first excuse, this admits that the problem is real, but suggests it can be lived with. But hearing loss and its many side effects compound. It is vital to seek the help of a trained professional to intervene as early as possible to mitigate the damage.
Many people will use their age as an excuse. Oftentimes someone will insist that they are too young to need a hearing aid because accepting so requires the acceptance of the deeper psychological barrier that we do all age and our bodies do all deteriorate over time. Other people will say “I’m too old,” suggesting that treatment is not worth the investment given how little time they assume they have left. It is never too early or too late to take action to improve your quality of life.
People might lazily generalize that hearing aids don’t work. This most likely suggests that they have not tried a good modern hearing aid with the appropriate guidance of a trained professional. Hearing aids improve not only volume but clarity and to successfully do this a solid hearing aid and trained supervision setting it up. With both of these factors in place hearing aids are precise, life-changing and effortless.
The Reality
Today’s hearing aids are sleek and nearly invisible. They are an investment, but they are by no means an indulgence. The returns on this investment include deeper connections to your loved ones, improved work performance, and an advantage against the many emotional and psychological problems that living with hearing loss so commonly lead to.
Make an appointment with one of our trained specialists today. They will guide you through your many options and answer all your questions to meet your specific needs to guarantee that you live your life to nothing less than your greatest potential.