Why am I deaf? No significant hearing loss, no wax

[ElsaMars]

My hearing is terrible. I have to get people to repeat things a lot and I struggle to hear the TV on low, even DH noticed how bad it is.

I had a Specsavers hearing test and the man said I had very slight loss in one ear but not to the extent of doing anything about it and no ear wax.

I'm 45 (the Specsavers man said I was one of his younger hearing testees)

I should say, overstimulation in noisy places, was mentioned and I do think I could have ADHD but it's definitely a lack of being able to hear things. It's driving me nuts!

So, why am I so hard of hearing? Any ideas?

Did you ask for a print out of your hearing test.

We have a hearing curve and poor hearing in certain frequencies can impact hearing speech more than others.

Have you always struggled in which case is it an auditory processing issue?

My DD kept passing NHS tests despite very poor hearing as the threshold is so high.

How is your eyesight?

I would see your GP and take it from there. There's obviously something going on that needs further investigation.

Get a second opinion.

Do you get ear infections? I find hearing loss can continue for several months after I've had one.

Other cause could be a sensory processing issue rather than a physical one, subtitles on whilst watching TV can help. Not talking in crowded places where there is lots of background noise you need to filter out.

If their hearing tests are anything like their sight tests, get a second opinion. Specsavers are shit.

There are two main types of hearing loss: conductive (where something is physically blocking the sound message) and sensori-neural (where the nerves aren’t processing the sound message properly). You can also get a mixture of the two.

I’d ask the GP for a referral to audiology.

Another one wondering about eyesight. We lip read more than we realise. I can hear fine with my specs on but struggle with them off! Odd I know!

Thanks for the replies!

My eyesight is OK, not brilliant but not awful.

It's not always been like this, last few years, possibly.

I'm erring towards getting another hearing test and then seeing GP if they still say its fine.

It's hardest to hear with ANY type of noise in the background like talking, shower running, kids shouting, you get the idea 😄

Really interesting responses, thanks so much!

As a woman in my 40s, I feel like I have so many bloody ailments now, including peri, but this one is so annoying (to the people around me as well)

It could be illness/tiredness making your concentration worse.

I very much struggle with background noise and have ADHD 😬

I'm 48 and I've had to have my ears syringed last year. I went back recently thinking they needed doing again, and apparently not.

Like you, I've noticed that over the past few years I do struggle to hear as well over other noise/from another room.

I kind of presumed it was just part of aging.

This sounds familiar. GP couldn't see anything wrong with my ears so sent me to ENT who decided I couldn't possibly have problems hearing as I'm sight impaired. (Bizzare given there are syndromes with both hearing and sight loss)

I was seen by Audiology who said that I have some mild hearing loss (it was suggested that during the hearing test I was hearing my tinnitus rather than the beeps) and Auditory processing disorder. When you listen you use your ears and brain. I can hear you speak but it doesn't always make sense. (And it's harder when you have a strong accent)

Tinnitus can make conversation hard to hear when there's background noise.

There’s a thing as we get older, cocktail party syndrome, where you struggle to hear with background noise. I have it and am also sensitive to noise in general. So I’m not deaf, but struggle to block the wrong noise out.

I’ve just bought these for that reason. Not tried them yet.

amzn.to/3zmsA9q

Look up Otosclerosis

I have the same in 1 ear. I've had a hearing and pressure test by nhs. It's the tube connecting nose and ear. It's congested and can't relieve itself. I've been told to hold nose ams blow. My ear pops ans I get temp relief.
Moving forward I'll need an operation apparently to open ans clean it out. It can be from.an old cold and hasn't cleared or allergy . Deffo get a proper hearing test done where they check pressure.