I've been wearing a pair of Oticon OPN 2 hearing aids during that time and its a sign of how great they've been that I haven't really had to think about them or to worry about hearing loss.

I came across a really interesting company and website recently called Tuned Care. They offer remote sessions with registered hearing care professionals to answer questions and give advice. The site also offers a marketplace where consumers can purchase situational solutions for differing hearing issues. The key thing is that the consultation services are separated from the marketplace, so none of the hearing care professionals profit from the sales of the devices. So that is virtual hearing care sessions where the professional is not invested in the sale of a device. It is a fascinating premise and nearly the same in concept as Steve has discussed here on Know. The key to their success will be how you, the consumer, will react to it.

In the last article, Steve bravely discussed the mistakes he made when it came to addressing his hearing loss. It reminded me of a study that was sent to us by Clear Living in relation to the impact of hearingloss. The study involved 3,700 users and it discussed the impact that hearing loss had on the mental well being and lifestyles of those people. It is enlightening reading.

I've been wearing hearing aids for 28+ years, it hasn't always been plain sailing. Look back, I've made some bad decisions about my hearing loss and they are common choices that people often make. I've done these, many other people are too, maybe you are as well.

A recent study released in the US indicates that moderate or worse hearing loss is 40% higher in women with Osteoporosis than the general population. While the actual causation isn't well understood, it means that if you have osteoporosis, it is worth your time to get regular hearing tests.

Study data shows hearing improvements in adults with acquired sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and the first-known linkage of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics for a potential hearing restoration therapy.

Steve is interviewed by Ben Thompson from puretinnitus.com about his experiences living with hearing loss

I am judging the seven wonders of sound competition in the UK this month, so get your entries in to have a chance to win some prizes.

An important number of the men and women who have served and serve the United States live with hearing loss, tinnitus or both. With more than 1.16M veterans receiving disability compensation for hearing loss, and nearly 1.79M for tinnitus, hearing problems are the most common service-connected disabilities among veterans.

It takes people an average of seven years to deal with their hearing loss from the time they realise they have a problem, they are robbing themselves of the pure joy of living. The inaction means seven long years of frustration, irritation, embarrassment, why bother? The satisfaction of life is yours to grasp, just get on with it, you will be far happier.

The last few articles from Steve have all been about his daily life with hearing loss, the common denominator across them all is that hearing loss awareness is pretty low across general society. I think that if you have hearing loss, you can help change that as you go about your daily life. The key to helping do so, is simple, tell people you have hearing loss and ask them to accommodate you. The more people you tell, the more people get educated.

I met a guy this morning who gives lessons on living with hearing loss, at the same time as running at a pretty swift pace, and he doesn't even know he's doing it.

We are forever apologising for things that we aren't actually sorry about. And things we should be sorry about. Which obviously leads to the response that I'm sure we've all said many many times: "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that, can you repeat it?"

I'm forty six years old, was diagnosed with a hearing loss when I was five and started wearing hearing aids full-time when I was nineteen. You would have think I would have learnt my lesson by now. What's more, you would think I would listen to my own advice. But no.

I had to go to our local pharmacy to pick up a repeat prescription. I knew it was going to probably be a difficult hearing situation as the ladies serving usually talk quite quietly, I guess because people are ordering their drugs and discussing treatments and they try not to broadcast to the whole shop that Bruce has a nasty rash where the sun don't shine.

A popular UK TV show will soon be showing an episode from the perspective of someone with hearing loss. The BBC show Eastenders will air a special episode that puts viewers in the shoes of someone experiencing hearing loss.

These are rather unprecedented times and for older people, who are more likely to have hearing loss, they are worrying times. In an effort to help, we are going to detail the facts, the science and run down some of the troubleshooting activities you can take if your hearing aids play up.

There have been many studys on hearing loss and cognitive decline, an interesting one recently identified brain changes from hearing loss that appeared to affect cognitive function. What was of real interest was that those changes appear to be reversible.

Just before Christmas we received a communication from Feedspot that they had honoured us with a place in the top fifty blogs for people with hearing loss, we forgot to mention it. So, here we go.

While many understand that noise at work can damage hearing, people don't necessarily understand that everyday noise they are exposed to can also cause problems. in this article Karen discusses how noise exposure can effect your hearing and just how loud everyday sounds can be.

There is a growing movement towards treating even mild hearing loss with hearing aids that is driven by our growing understanding of the effects of untreated hearing loss on wider health. Is it a good thing or a bad thing, and when should someone with mild hearing loss consider getting hearing aids?

Right now sign language is used by a small percentage of the population, there are roughly 500,000 ASL users in the USA and around 150,000 BSL users in the UK. Compare that to the number of people who have some degree of hearing loss: 48 million in the US and 11 million in the UK. Probably not all of those have a loss bad enough to be affecting their daily lives, let's say there's 20 million in the USA and 5 million in the UK who have a problematic hearing loss.

Research Project for Treatment of Single-Sided Deafness

Was in a meeting yesterday where I quickly realised I wasn't going to be able to hear anything anyone was saying and I was in trouble from the get go

Hearing loss is a pain in the ass, but you need to accept it and move on. Part of that is understanding the wider implications that your hearing loss might have. For instance, will you hear the smoke alarm at three in the morning if it goes off? There is some research out there that says up to 50% of people with hearing loss won't. That is a serious safety issue, let's talk hearing loss and safety at home.

I was pleasantly surprised to spot some pictures of BSL finger spelling on a coffee tin in Tesco today. Even though it was decaf I had to buy it.

Geoff sent me a link to the new Good Vibes app from Samsung the other day, I watched their promo video and it was just......heartwarming. Good Vibes is a smartphone app (available in their Galaxy Store) that converts morse code into text and vice versa - meaning someone who is deafblind can communicate with their non hearing-impaired friends and family.

SignHealth, the UK-based charity offering Deaf people assistance with health issues, has launched a text-based support service for those suffering with mental health problems.

The Amazon Alexa has become a popular device for many across the world, interestingly, many older people have the devices or something like it. Amplify Hearing, a provider of hearing aids and hearing care in the UK decided that they would use its popularity to offer a hearing screening. They released the hearing screening app in July, here is what you need to know.

Hearing loss, a hidden injury for service men and women, as many as 300,000 ex-servicemen and women in the UK have hearing loss related to their service but there is help for them.

Are my hearing aids broken? Is anyone else hearing that noise?

It is increasingly clear that Diabetes and hearing loss are linked and we realised that we need to widen our focus as an advice website. In this article, Jennifer D'Souza discusses food that may help control diabetes.

We understand clearly that untreated hearing loss is linked to other health and well-being problems. At their recent Global Media Day, Phonak spelled out the problems and the costs of untreated hearing loss.

Acknowledging that you may have a hearing loss is not easy. There is social stigma surrounding hearing loss, vanity associated with hearing aids and devices, and ageism to contend with from others and oneself. The only path to better hearing health, however, is by attending to your hearing loss straight away.

Many people aren’t comfortable in putting out personal health issues for public knowledge. They consider their hearing loss to be on a needs-to-know basis. This is understandable from a privacy point of view, but not all health issues should be kept under wraps.

It's Deaf Awareness Week from the 6th to the 12th May 2019, here's what I want you to do during this time, this is your challenge....

The cost of untreated hearing loss in the EU is put at a rather frightening 185 Billion Euros, untreated disabling hearing loss is estimated to cost the UK 25.5 Billion sterling. Let's take a look at what the report has to say.

According to a new report, a staggering 466 million people worldwide suffer from disabling hearing loss. That is a rather frightening number, and they go onto say that one in three people over the age of 65 have problems that make a real difference to their lives.

Hearing dogs are trained to alert their owner to sounds around the home, such as alarms or doorbells, they do so much more than that though, let's talk about hearing dogs

HearX are an extremely innovative business from South Africa who are looking to change mobile audiology in some of the underserved areas of the globe. One of their interesting innovations is the HearScope, a video otoscope that works with a Smartphone. It has been around for a while, so we thought we would buy one and review it.

The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away.

For every situation in life, good or bad, there are many wise sayings that fit the occasion. Words of encouragement help us get through the blues, support us when we’re in physical or mental pain, and inspire us in knuckle-biting moments of decision-making.

Ever just nodded, said yes or chuckled when you didn't hear what someone said? Yeah, me too. Trying to understand what someone is saying is a big problem

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute have identified four types of neurons in the peripheral auditory system, three of which are new to science. The analysis of these cells can lead to new therapies for various kinds of hearing disorders, such as tinnitus and age-related hearing loss.

You can blame Steve, he made me do it, anyway, our first hearing aid know podcast is now live, after some internal debate, I decided to talk about hearing loss. Just be happy it wasn't video, all you have to do is listen to me, not look.

Unfortunately, sometimes hearing aids just aren't enough to help people hear better in every situation. Even with the very best hearing aid technology, sometimes some people have issues hearing in certain situations. I have wanted to investigate this for a while but I have been spurred to action recently by a conversation with a US colleague. So this is the initial introduction of what I hope will turn into a full section on Know.

Luke Glassford has over ten years experience working with personal injury experts and he recently submitted a post on industrial deafness. We asked him to outline the process for making a claim for the condition because we ourselves have no experience of the process. Here he discusses the procedure for making a claim for compensation for industrial deafness in the UK

Industrial deafness can sometimes be a temporary condition, although there are many cases where the hearing loss is permanent. If the symptoms of industrial deafness are noticed and treated early enough, then the chance of the hearing loss becoming permanent are greatly reduced.

As we age, the strength of our jaws will diminish, which is typically caused by deterioration of the parts that bind the jawbone to the skull. When the components of the jaw decrease, it could result in a painful condition that is referred to as temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ).

If you have a pain in your body, you know to go to the doctor. Toothache? Schedule a visit with the dentist. Worsening vision? Time to see the eye doctor. But what do you do if you think you’re losing your hearing?

while research into the effects of coffee and caffeine on hearing is very limited, one study shows that caffeine appears to help combat the onset of tinnitus. However, another limited study found some evidence to suggest that caffeine may lead to permanent hearing loss in a very specific situation. You can read all about it here in an article by Kathy Gallo.

Hearing loss can make work difficult, but there are plenty of assistive devices that can make your life easier, in this article Cassie runs through a few of them.

Hearing loss is one of the most common medical conditions, affecting nearly 50 million Americans. It can be difficult to follow conversations, hear important sounds, and even enjoy simple pleasures like birds singing. However, hearing loss doesn’t always occur on its own. For many people, it can be caused by or lead to more serious health conditions.

According to a study that caught my eye recently, it seems that younger children who develop SSHL may have lower recovery rates than older children. The study was a retrospective review of 67 patients who were diagnosed with SSNHL at the hospitals at the Medical Center at Seoul National University in 2017.

Bananas, the cure for hearing loss! Not quite, but eating more bananas is one thing that you can do to keep your hearing optimal. We have long known that certain nutirents are important for hearing function. An Australian Campaign for Better Hearing are using a novel way to highlight the link between bananas and hearing health with their Go Bananas events

A recent article in the Guardian showed that a study showed that age-related hearing loss was significantly linked to cognitive decline. What do we know about hearing loss and its possible links to dementia?

A recent conversation with a friend moved me to write about sudden hearing loss again. You need to treat any sudden hearing loss as a medical emergency until you know different. A firend of mine who should have known better didn't, but thankfully the outcome was better than should have been expected.

Modern offices are a tough place for those of us with hearing loss. The trend of late has been for open plan offices, basically large open spaces stuffed full of desks, with no dividing walls between desks or areas. This is supposed to improve collaboration amongst employees as everyone can talk and see everyone else, the jury is out as to whether an open plan office improves anyone's working life but one thing is for sure: it's a nightmare if you have hearing loss. Years back the office trend was for everyone to be in cubicles, like each person had their own little walled-off area with just them and their desk in it, this layout was widely hated by people but it would have been a much easier environemnt to hear in.

Really interesting one came up on my news feed recently, motor bike riders can risk permanent hearing loss just by riding at speed. It's nothing to do with a loud exhaust, it is all down to wind noise. It fascinated me and I never once have thought about it, I doubt if riders do either, but it means they should look at proper ear protection.

My eye was caught recently by an article in the Hearing Journal recently about a study pertaining to hearing loss in Children with Down Syndrome. The study confirmed earlier findings of other studies and really validated the education of parents, carers and physicians as a necessary strategy for early identification and referral.

Hearing loss has many co-morbidities, simply means that if you have a certain health problem, it is likely that you will have hearing loss. In this article I want to go over the connection between you heart health and hearing loss.

I was very saddened recently by an article that detailed what can only be seen as a failure of nursing homes to properly deal with their residents with hearing loss. While the article was saddening, it reminded me of a recent fantastic experience with a Patient of mine in a nursing home. Let's talk about Widex hearing aids and the pure unadulterated joy delivered through a TV Dex.

Ruth Kirkham is intimately familiar with hearing loss having suffered it herself, here she discusses why it is different than you may think. Many people equate hearing loss with volume, the truth is that hearing loss tends to be about balance. In this article, Ruth explains how she discovered that.

I find shooting to be almost a Zen experience, range shooting in particular can be hugely relaxing. However, if sport shooters don't protect their hearing they will lose it. We received an infographic submission recently from gunsafelab.com and we decided to republish it.

I was really saddened to read about the death of Andrew Broadhurst, a 39 year old man from Birmingham in the UK. A missed middle ear infection ultimately led to his death from Meningitis and encephalitis. Otitis Media, or mid-ear infection is completely treatable, however, when left without treatment it can be fatal.

Hearing loss is a family sport, it affects the entire family of a person who suffers it. We have tried to make that clear in the past, but you can be confident now. It has to be true, the Daily Mail says so

When do you mention your hearing loss at a job interview?

I've been losing my hearing since the age of 5, now aged 43 there ain't much left

Google celebrates British Sign Language and the work of Thomas Braidwood

Just over a year ago I got back from a night out with friends, sat down on the sofa and lost the hearing in my left ear. It really was as unceremonious as that.

Cotton buds are not really meant to be put in to your ears - this video might convince you why.

Our Labrador isn't a trained hearing dog but he's my ears when I need him

Ear infections can be a real pain, they can also be dangerous, let's talk about what you need to know about treating ear infections and protecting your hearing health

Mid ear infections can be a stressful and painful event for children, they are also the biggest cause of ongoing hearing problems in the developing world. HearX, a company in South Africa is about to launch a solution to the problem of early diagnosis of mid ear infections. It's a smart, affordable, easy to use, mobile solution for accurate diagnosis of ear disease. The high-quality variable magnification otoscope “pen” connects to a smartphone running the hearScope application. hearScope is a diagnostic aid for doctors, nurses and healthcare providers but can also be used by parents to track and monitor their children’s ear health

We took a look at some systems a while ago that may help people with a mild to moderate hearing loss to mild for hearing aids to hear the TV better. Today, we are taking a look at a second system from Sennheiser, the Flex 5000 digital wireless audio system.

The other day I woke up in Barcelona. We've rented an apartment there for the summer. It's a lovely sunny day. Sunlight is streaming through the window, lighting up the entire bedroom.

Nine months ago I was sitting in a school auditorium, listening to a guest speaker giving a presentation. I am a teacher of Early Years children, and this was part of the school training sessions, a week before the start of the new school year. I lifted my head up from writing some notes, and out of nowhere came a loud screeching sound that filled my head with pressure.

Tinnitus can be a very debilitating condition and while there is no cure yet, it can be treated very well. Alan Hopkirk of The Invisible Hearing Clinic in Glasgow has focused on the effective treatment of Tinnitus for many years.

Has it got difficult to hear the TV? Is your family making comments about your hearing? Do you think that people are mumbling? Are you worried about hearing loss? If you are, there are some things I think are imperative for you to consider. Read this because it might just save you a lot of pain.

Sometimes as a professional who deals with hearing loss everyday it is easy for me to become blase with the subject. Just occasionally I am reminded that people view hearing loss in a different way to the way I do. Hearing loss is not the end of the world, nor is it a sign that you are old, stupid or infirm, it just is. It is important that you realise that so that you will not allow hearing loss to rob you of the joy of life. In this article Joe Fleming discusses four ways to deal with hearing related anxiety.

In an article a couple of years ago 4 Game-Changing Technologies For The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing, four technologies were discussed, where are they now? We were talking to a lady named Jennifer Scott about a couple of article recently and we decided to follow up on them. In this article we decided to look at what happened to 4 technologies that were feted in 2015 as game changing possibilities

Hearing loss can be difficult to recognise for the person who suffers it, however, there are common words that become difficult to understand. In this our second guest post, Andrew Lekashman of ClearValue Hearing outlines what they are and why they can be problematic.

Are we doing too much damage to our ears by overusing earphones? From daily use at the gym, to hours spent on gaming, we discover some interesting facts on how earphones can play their part in ear damage.

Yes, I can still hear, but I don't hear like most people do, it is not something that is easy and happens passively, I have a severe hearing loss so listening and understanding conversations is hard work, it is effort.

A study undertaken in Children's Hospital Los Angeles and 37 other Children's Oncology Group hospitals in the U.S. and Canada has shown that hearing loss related to the use of Cisplatin in chemotherapy can be be prevented. The compound used cut the incidence of hearing loss by as much as 50% in the study.

A new drug from French biotech firm Sensorion has shown promise in early animal trials as a treatment for sudden hearing loss. In a proof-of-concept study, animals were exposed to a 120 dB noise level for two hours, then randomly treated over 14 consecutive days with either a placebo or increasing doses (5 mg/kg, 10 mg/kg and 20 mg/kg) of SENS-401. Following 14 days of treatment, the residual hearing loss was dramatically lower in the group treated with SENS-401.

I came across a recent video from Duracell designed to motivate people with hearing loss to do something about it. It is an outstanding effort, some people may feel that it lays it on a bit thick, but I really think it hit the right notes. I also think it is a relatively accurate commentary on the difficulties that untreated hearing loss raise. And no matter what my wife says, I did not well up!

Japanese researchers have discovered a process to turn stem sells into cochlear cells (cells in the inner ear). While their focus is on correcting a certain type of congenital hearing loss, the ability to manufacture replacement cochlear cells could have far reaching benefits for any type of sensorineural hearing loss. A cure may be as little as five to ten years away for hearing loss.

I'm getting annoyed with my ears 'cos they don't hear properly.......

Lately I have returned to Practice, it seemed like a good thing to do because I have really missed dealing with people and playing with the latest technology. One of the things that has struck me is that denial of a hearing loss is still a common factor that needs to be overcome. I don't know why I thought it would have gone away, but I was surprised to find it was still a large factor. My own thinking around the subject is pretty simple, if I have a hearing loss I need to get it treated. However, I now realise that I am still one of a small few that think that way.

We have all by now read the lurid headlines in relation to the ongoing research into untreated hearing loss and its apparent link to neuro cognitve disorders like Dementia. Headlines like the one above are likely to strike fear into people. But hey, that is what sells Newspapers, let's take a closer look at the evidence.

Are you comfortable with taking your hearing aid out, changing the battery and putting it back in when there are other people about? Gael Hannan asked this question in her HHTM column and it got me thinking.

Audiogram Creator is a free tool that lets you record hearing test results, save them for viewing later and download them as an image to your computer, smartphone or tablet. I have released a new version of Audiogram Creator with the following features: – You can now record results for the following tests: air conduction, bone conduction, masked air conduction and masked bone conduction using the industry-standard symbols.

People will often tweet about things they’ve overheard in a bar, on a train or wherever – a good one I spotted in my Twitter feed today: Overheard Muggle conversation: “I wasn’t that drunk.” “Dude, you were hugging an old man with a beard, screaming ‘Dumbledore you’re alive!'” — Proffessor Snape (@ProfSnapeSev) March 21, 2015 Sometimes I feel like I need a reminder that most other people are hearing way more than I am, when you can’t overhear a

We signed the whole hour ride back, much to our passengers, and our surprise. When she left for a moment to grab her phone so we could exchange numbers, that is when I realized how differently people saw our conversation. Excellent article Lauren Vujovich on the general public’s perception of deafness. Read it here.

Hearing loss can cause awkward situations, not just for the people with the hearing problem but for people communicating with them too. For someone who has never had to talk to someone with a hearing loss before it can be difficult to know what to do. First of all they’ve got to realise that you have a hearing problem and then they’ve got to work out how to deal with that and they’re probably worried about making sure they don’t offend you by

If you have a moderate to severe (or worse) hearing loss then chances are that as well as struggling to hear speech and other sounds you also struggle with sounds that are too loud for you. I know I sometimes do, doors shutting in our office seem loud to me, running water always sounds a bit too loud as well. Many times over the years I’ve been in situations where I have had to turn my hearing aids down or move aware from a loud sound while

Steve is Retail Director at Ascent Hearing, he wears hearing aids himself and also suffers from tinnitus. I have had tinnitus since the age of 33. Well to honest, I’ve had “fizzy” tinnitus since I was about seven. But I’ve had pulsing, thumping, throbbing, whooshing tinnitus since 33. It’s not a depressing thing to have as I’ve not had silence for such a long time. However, I have tried eating vast swathes of Marmite (for the vitamin B), chewing

This is a guest article by Patrick Frueler. Patrick is the founder of Audicus. Audicus is a new, simple and affordable way of buying great quality hearing aids that fit. While hearing loss is often attributed to natural ageing or the iPod generation’s exposure to loud music, hearing impairment due to noise at work is particularly prevalent. Have you ever seen a fire truck blasting through with full sirens and asked yourself how on earth those

I started losing my hearing at the age of 5, I’m now 36 and have a moderate/severe loss in both ears – it started with a mild loss and it has got steadily worse over the years. Apart from a few years in my early teens, I’ve been wearing hearing aids the whole time. I’ve developed a number of coping strategies, often without even realising it, that help me get through conversations with other people.

A list of things that everyone with hearing loss needs to know. Useful for those having problems with their hearing aids or those thinking of buying their first pair. Hearing aids won’t give you back the perfect hearing you had as a child By far the most common type of hearing loss is sensorineural hearing loss; this is damage to the tiny nerves in the inner ear that pick up sounds and send them to your brain. A hearing aid amplifies and changes

I’ve seen a few websites recently offering cures for hearing loss. Yes, cures. And, would you believe it, it’s so incredibly simple! Just send $29.99 and they’ll send you some tablets, a spray or some eardrops. It really is that easy. I’m not going to link to the websites and I’m not going to name them (don’t much fancy being sued) but it’s pretty obvious that they are total horseshit. If your doctor and audiologist cannot cure your hearing loss

I’m becoming more and more convinced that my ability to hear and understand what people are saying is strongly linked to how much sleep I got the night before. I’ve written before that I don’t hear the same things every day. Yesterday I was very tired and it was a bad hearing day, I couldn’t really understand anyone in the office, I was constantly straining to hear and often asking people to repeat themselves. Last night I went to bed an hour

Deafness Research UK is a charity that helps to create radical improvements in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all forms of hearing impairment. Andrew Goodwin is their Information and Outreach Advisor and he kindly agreed to take some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Deafness Research UK? [Andrew Goodwin] My name is Andrew Goodwin and I’m the Information and

I remember being so conscious of my hearing aids when I first started wearing them. It felt like they were HUGE! It felt like there was a big flashing neon arrow above my head pointing right at my ears and a sign up reading, “Hey, check this guy out, look at his ears!”. I still do find myself wondering from time to time if people have spotted them and what they are thinking about them. Last happened a few weeks ago when I was on a bus and there

I always use subtitles when I’m watching a TV show or a movie. I don’t really need to, I have a moderate-severe bilateral hearing loss and I could turn the TV up enough so that I could hear it. I mostly watch TV when my wife and daughter have gone to bed so obviously I don’t want the TV blaring out and waking them up, that’s one reason why I always use subtitles, the other reason is: After a hard day of: straining to hear stuff, trying to stay

Earlier this year World of Warcraft player Unwelcome suffered an accident that permanently robbed him of his hearing. Feeling alienated and shunned by his real life friends, he returned to World of Warcraft for some online alienation and shunning. The loss of one’s hearing is a tragic and traumatic event, but it doesn’t necessarily mean an end to gaming. Many popular games offer subtitle options for the hearing impaired. World of Warcraft itself

Just because I heard you yesterday does not mean I will hear you today. This list was inspired by this post from SayWhatClub.com.

There’s one thing that people could say about my hearing loss that does get to me but in general I try not to stay calm when I get into a situation because I didn’t hear something. Sometimes I get that look and I feel like an idiot, sometimes I get frustrated because someone will not make themselves heard, sometimes I get nervous because I’ve lost the conversation and if someone asks me something I won’t have a clue what to say and will have to

Here’s some of the blogs that I like to read. If you enjoy this site then you’ll definitely love these: Speak Up Librarian “I’m a hard of hearing librarian attempting to find my way in the world as a late deafened adult. I became aware of my hearing loss at the age of 40. These stories describe what it’s like for me to come to terms with my hearing loss and adjust to life with hearing aids. I hope you can laugh with me at some of the mistakes

This is from the iTunes hearing loss simulator app store page: This looks great! I wish I had an iPad just to get this app (which isn’t going to happen seeing as iPads are £500 here in the UK). I’m going to email Starkey to see if there’s an iPod version. I’d love to be able to show some other people how I hear.

I hate waiting rooms, they make me nervous. Doctor surgeries, opticians, dentists, business foyers, hospital waiting rooms – they’re all the same: large rooms full of people with lots of potential for embarrassing hearing mistakes. Waiting rooms are either incredibly noisy, full of chatter, kids playing and parents shouting; or they are deathly silent with no-one uttering a word. I’m not sure which is better.

I’m usually fairly relaxed about my hearing loss and people’s attitude towards it. It’s doesn’t bother me overly if someone decides to use a comically loud, slow and patronising voice if I ask them to repeat themselves – I just tell them they don’t need to do that. It doesn’t bother me if someone decides that repeating themselves is too much trouble – they probably aren’t worth listening too anyway.

I have good hearing days and bad hearing days. Today was a good day, I had a conversation with someone who was a fair distance away across our open-plan office – I heard them easily and I realised that I’m not often able to understand them at that distance. I don’t think my ability to hear fluctuates from day to day but there’s definitely good spells and then not so good ones. When you have a hearing loss and understanding conversation is a

I took our car into a garage for repair today. After dropping the keys off at the service desk I went and sat in their waiting room – it wasn’t really a room as such, just a ring of chairs in the corner of a large open-plan showroom. There were three of us sat in there. After about 15 minutes or so of waiting, the garage receptionist appeared at the opposite end of the waiting area to me and asked if anyone would like tea of coffee. I heard her

We all accept that noise is part of our everyday lives, however, if noise in a workplace reaches a certain level, the employer has a duty, by law, to protect their employees’ hearing. We can prevent hearing loss caused by work but once your hearing has gone, it won’t come back. It is estimated there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who suffer Industrial Deafness due to harmful levels of noise at work.

The vuvuzela is the noise weapon of choice for fans at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The long, plastic, trumpet-shaped vuvuzela was found to emit an ear-piercing noise of 127 decibel — louder than a lawnmower (90 decibels) and a chainsaw (100 decibels). You only need to expose your ears to this level of noise for a few minutes to run the risk of some damage to your hearing. Just a few minutes, and the fans are blasting these things for the

Ear infections happen when germs such as bacteria, viruses or fungi cause swelling and irritation of your ear. They are most common in childhood, and are often passed from one child to another, but they can happen at any age. Infections of the middle ear are called otitis media, and infections of the outer ear are called otitis externa. Most ear infections are uncomfortable but not serious. Most will clear up by themselves in a few days. They

New York rapper Foxy Brown recently opened up about her deafness with talk show host and comedian, Mo’Nique. The female MC spoke about how she went deaf a few years ago and how she has now managed to regain her hearing. Foxy Brown said: “It was 100 percent gone, overnight. They don’t even know why. I have the best surgeon in the world who specializes in ear problems and the operations and surgeries and Wednesday night [in 2005], I was out

Binaural: “Having or relating to two ears” Monaural: “Of, relating to, or designating sound reception by one ear” If you have a binaural hearing loss then you have a problem in both of your ears – if you have Monaural then it’s only one. If you do have a binaural loss then it is very important that you wear hearing aids in both ears. Don’t be tempted to buy only one – in my opinion it would be better two buy two cheaper hearing aids than it

Sometimes I listen to a song and I think, “I’m so lucky that I can still hear that”. As someone with a hearing loss I spend a lot of time worrying about what I can’t hear. It’s pretty rare that I stop and think about what I can hear. I thought I’d put this article together just so that I could celebrate some of my favourite songs that I can still hear. I’m not a big listener of music and I never use an mp3 player (too paranoid about further

The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) have simple hearing checks that you can use to help you determine whether you have a hearing problem or not. They are not full hearing tests as you would get if you visited an audiologist – it’s more of a first step to help you judge whether you need to go and see an audiologist for a full assessment. The have an online test, which you can try by clicking this link. The number for the telephone

I like to watch TV with subtitles/captions on. It’s just easier, it saves me having to have the volume up too high for everyone else – particularly when the rest of my family have gone to bed, I can watch my favourite shows without waking them. This would be great if the quality of subtitling wasn’t so hit-and-miss. Some channels have no subtitles at all, which I can live with and doesn’t bother me that much. I just don’t ever watch that

I walked into the office yesterday morning and walked straight into a conversation between a few people. I said hello and answered a question from one of them and then walked over to my desk. I took my coat off, grabbed my cup to make a tea (I’m English, we do a lot of tea), turned around and…. That look that means I instantly know that someone has spoken to me and I didn’t hear them. I’m not sure I can describe the look but if you’re hard of

There are some manual captioning services around, captvids.com is one, that do manual captioning of videos. That’s cool but I’m wondering if it’s possible to do automatic captioning? There’s a lot of speech recognition software around, Dragon Naturally Speaking for example, that do an amazing job. It’s probably 7 or 8 years since I’ve used a voice recognition system and even back then they were near perfect – they can only have gotten better

Studies have shown that humans’ capacity to hear affects the quality of our relationships and mental health, regulates physiology and can impact stress and income levels. Explore the link between healthy hearing and overall well-being and the effects health issues such as diabetes, hypertension and medication can have on the delicate structures of hearing. Discover new strategies to preserve and improve hearing for life.

Shanna Groves was diagnosed with progressive hearing loss at the age of 27 after the birth of her first child. She has written about her hearing journey in Hearing Loss Magazine, The Kansas City Star, MOMSense, and the book A CUP OF COMFORT FOR NURSES(Adams Media). LIP READER is her second book and her first novel. A member of the Hearing Loss Association of America and the National Association of Memoir Writers, Shanna lives in the Midwest with

Unilateral hearing loss (UHL) is also known as Single Sided Deafness (SSD) – it is where a person has normal hearing in one ear but an impairment in the other. People suffering UHL will have difficulty hearing and understanding speech in noisy situations and they will find it difficult to localise sound. A contralateral routing of signals (CROS) hearing aid is used to treat single sided deafness – it takes sounds from the ear with poorer hearing

Lip-reading is an essential part of communication for the hard of hearing. But do people mind having their lips read and do you mind staring at someone’s mouth when they are talking? I used to lip-read a lot and, according to a hearing specialist I saw many years ago, I’m very good at it. But I don’t look directly at people’s mouths any more, these days I tend to look people straight in the eye. Why? Because a few years ago I began to realise

About 10 million people in the United States alone—from troops returning from war to students with music blasting through headphones—are suffering from impairing noise-induced hearing loss. The rising trend is something researchers and physicians at the University of Michigan Kresge Hearing Research Institute, Ann Arbor, Mich, are hoping to reverse, with a cocktail of vitamins and the mineral magnesium that has shown promise as a possible way to

Hearing loss reportedly affects more than 36 million Americans. Although hearing problems are commonly associated with the normal aging process, more than half of all hearing-impaired persons are younger than 65. With the increased use of personal audio devices and earbuds, the number of Americans experiencing hearing loss at a younger age is growing. In response to the growing number of Americans experiencing hearing loss, the American Academy

Melissa Saenz, Ph.D., a postdoc at Caltech, has discovered that the video above can identify people with auditory synesthesia, a condition that can make some people hear music, even though there is no music being played. “While I was running an experiment at the Caltech Brain Imaging Center, a group of students happened to pass by on a tour, and I volunteered to explain what I was doing,” explains Saenz, who, along with Christof Koch, the Lois

A researcher at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol wants to meet people diagnosed with impaired hearing but avoid wearing their aids. The Royal National Institute for the Deaf estimates nine million people in the UK have some degree of hearing loss but only 1.4 million use aids. Psychology student, Claire Calvert wants to find out if there is a stigma attached to the look of hearing aids. She is also interested to know what

With a twitch of a muscle, the Chinese concave-eared torrent frog brushes off the sounds of thundering rivers, focusing on the one thing that really matters: the siren song of the opposite sex. The males of this rare species are the only animal known to be able to turn a deaf ear to distracting noises while enhancing the calls of their own kind, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Formula 1 racing commentator Murray Walker described the impact that 50 years at the side of the race track has had on his hearing and how that’s affecting his life. The commentator, who went deaf from the roar of the car engines, never wore ear protectors because he thought he would look like a wimp – even though noise in the Grand Prix pits reached 120 decibels.

The ASL Video Dictionary and Inflection Guide shows thousands of signs in crisp color video and links them to sentences that demonstrate how they change to convey different meanings. This is critical because unlike English words, ASL signs change – inflect – from sentence to sentence to show different meanings. The sign for help, for example, can change to mean help me, help them, help for a long time, etc. The experts at RIT’s National

You can use Google’s video search to find subtitled videos on the web. Then simply click the “search only closed captioned videos” checkbox:

Something unusual happened in the office last week: I had a conversation with several people about my hearing problems and the aids that I wear. I’ve never been one to hide my hearing aids, they are there for everyone to see, but I’ve never really talked about them with anyone. Possibly people just weren’t interested or they felt they couldn’t mention them. Anyway, last week, we were talking about CSI – one of the episodes in which Grissom is

Pearl got in touch with me recently and let me know about www.saywhatclub.com – she is a long-standing member of the club and editor of their newsletter. I asked if her if she would answer a few interview questions via email and let us know what the club is all about. Steve: Before we talk about the SayWhatClub, tell us a bit about yourself? Pearl: My name is Pearl and I am hearing impaired for what seems forever. I always had difficulty hearing

One of my new year resolutions is to begin learning sign language. It is something I have been thinking about for many years but have never got around to doing. I guess, similar to a spoken language, sign is not something your are going to learn in a short period of time – I think I need to take positive action now and start to learn so that when I do eventually lose my ability to hear I will still have a method of communication.

The Phonak website has a very interesting page on which they demonstrate what it is like to be partially deaf. The page has a number of links that play everyday sounds, such as people talking in various environments, bird song, a piano, a telephone, etc. You can select one of three options for each sound: how it sounds to someone with normal hearing, how it sounds to someone with mild hearing loss and, finally, how it sounds to someone with

LACE (Listening and Communication Enhancement) is computer software that helps you to improve your listening and vocal comprehension skills. Hearingaids help you hear, but they don’t help you to listen. This is where LACE comes in. The software runs on Windows and Mac and offers a number of listening tests to train your brain to better pick out and understand words in noisy, difficult situations. I downloaded the demo version and gave it a try.

A person’s hearing loss is categorised as being either mild, moderate, severe or profound. Audiologists and other hearing professionals use these terms; the four types of hearing loss are defined as follows: You can have a look at decibel levels of common sounds to get an idea of what sounds a person with each kind of loss will, or will not, be able to hear.

The new generation of MP3 players offer significant improvements in sound quality and also provide extended listening time, therefore the likelihood of using the equipment for longer is much greater than it used to be. Most portable music players are capable of producing sounds up to 105dB, while some even reach120dB. Above 80dB is the level that you are putting your hearing at risk. Loud noise can cause damage to the hair cells in the inner

A new type of stethoscope will enable doctors to hear the sounds of the body in extremely loud situations, such as during the transportation of wounded soldiers in helicopters. The stethoscope uses ultrasound technology, similar to that used to generate images of internal organs, muscles and unborn foetuses. The ultrasound stethoscope is almost impervious to loud noise and is capable of making accurate readings at noise levels up to 120

Jeff Rich, drummer with 80s rock band Status Quo, is interviewed on the Independent website. He talks about how his hearing was damaged by years of drumming on-stage surrounded by speakers pumping out 4,500 watts. He talks about how he was initially in denial about his hearing problem and how his life has been transformed by digital hearing aids. The article goes on to talk about some of the options available for people wishing to purchase

Noise is measured in units called decibels (dB), on a scale from zero to 140. The higher the number in decibels, the louder the noise. The louder the noise, the greater the risk of hearing loss. Hearing loss can occur with regular exposure to noise levels of 110 decibels or more for periods longer than one minute. No more than 15 minutes of unprotected exposure to 100 decibels is recommended. Long-term exposure to 80-85 decibels or over can

This text is from an old old article on Gizmondo: I was in a hallway with two young ladies once. We smiled and chatted and stuff as we walked. In front of their apartment, one of them asked me something that I didn’t understand. It sounded like “Wannakwam mwin”. I said “Sorry?” “Mwahnnakwam mwin?” Not wanting to look like a tard, I just smiled and said “Yeah…” Then, after a brief silence, “Ok, well, bye now!” They looked at each other funny, and

Pardon? Say what? Come again? Say that again? Eh? Can you repeat that? Sorry? You what? Aye? I missed that? Hmm? It doesn’t matter how you say it, they all mean the same thing: you didn’t hear what was just said. I’ve been thinking recently about how often I don’t hear what someone has said and how often I ask them to repeat themselves. In some situations I will ask repeatedly, no matter how many time it takes, until I hear. In others, I will

Punters at music venues are damaging their ears as badly as if they spent five hours in a room with a lawnmower, a new hearing study has revealed. Researchers at Ear Science Institute Australia measured the volume of music at a dozen clubs around Perth, in the first Australian study to comprehensively calculate venue noise. They found the average sound level was over 95 decibels – on par with the noise emitted by a lawnmower or circular saw.