5 Tips for Choosing What to Do About Your Hearing
Maria Brown started her clinic, the Maria Brown Hearing Clinic, 14 years ago in Hobart, Tasmania with the help of her family. She is a qualified Audiometrist with 20+ years of industry experience passionate about helping Tasmanians reconnect with their families.
1. It's okay to say no!
But it is not okay to ignore the fact that you have a hearing loss.
It does hurt the people around you and your family do get upset because you won't talk to them anymore. You don’t talk to them because you can't hear them! This is a vicious cycle.
We all have to recognise what issues we have to deal with and be confident enough to pursue a solution. Your family are well-meaning and just want you to be the person you have always been. They want to communicate and have a relationship with you.
2. What do you want?
Do you want your hearing aids to be invisible? Would they embarrass you?
You need to ask these questions of yourself. It is not enough for your wife/husband/partner to be upset with you, so you "have to do something". You need to choose what YOU want.
What will you be comfortable to wear? How much are you happy to spend on a hearing device? What features do you need? Do you want the best for yourself? Or do you want something cheap that will probably make you unhappy (and I'll end up saying I told you so)?
3. Hearing loss doesn't mean you are deaf.
Hearing loss, to start with, affects your ability to follow conversations well and quickly—it doesn't mean the world goes dead silent.
Background noise starts to overwhelm you in social situations and the TV usually gets louder (and the family starts complaining!). As your hearing deteriorates, people repeat things to you and you still don’t understand specigic words. The solution is easier when we are at the stage of repeating. There is still a level of hearing to work with.
When we don’t understand the speech at all, then it is harder. The brain (which is what actually does the hearing) struggles to understand speech no matter how loud speech is once hearing is lost.
4. Where you get your hearing aids from is an important factor.
A specialist is necessary for a higher level of understanding of all of the body's ailments.
If your back won't stop hurting after a while, the GP can't do any more, then a specialist is called. If your eyes won't work, you go to a specialist who will fit you with glasses. Your teeth are aching, you go to a dentist and have it dealt with.
Buying hearing aids is no different. A specialist is necessary. This is not like buying a couch or a car. We should not be salespeople. You should not feel that someone wants to sell you anything.
5. Shop around. Don’t fall foul of great advertising.
In our current world, it is paralysing how much advertising we see or read about everything we could ever want to buy or could hope to buy.
How do you sort through it all? Lots of questions. Don’t just believe what you are being told. Larger companies often have huge advertising budgets, but there are also greater restraints on the quality of care they can provide.
Try different hearing systems and see what works for you. Make sure you have a no-obligation, risk-free trial and that trial doesn't cost you any money. Hearing aids range in price from clinic to clinic—you want to know that should you buy, you'll get your money's worth in both the hearing aids and the care you'll need with them!
Are you ready to do something about your hearing?
A hearing test takes 15 minutes and is free. Call 1300 797 519 to book today