My daughter (11) has an eardrum anomaly and sees an ENT 3 hours out of town. Prior to each visit, we need to have a hearing exam. Dr. Liz White performs her comprehensive exam and provides the results directly to the otologist. I'm so thankful to have a local audiologist on the care team for my daughter's ears. My daughter loves the care Dr. White provides and even aspires to be an audiologist when she grows up!
I also follow Dr. White on Facebook. I am 48, and even though I didn't want to admit it at first, many of her posts felt all too familiar. My whole career has been spent in a quiet professional office. I have never been one to blast music, and I rarely use headphones. As a matter of fact, I am sensitive to loud noises. Yet, I have been experiencing difficulty hearing complete sentences in social situations. This is frustrating to the point I sometimes avoid them. I frequently have to say "what?" to my children, friends and family. I also read an interesting theory about how hearing health may be affected by certain autoimmune diseases that I have. Finally, a simple statement I read about why people take care of their eye health, but seem to think ear health is an old person condition, prompted me to make an appointment.
Well guess what? It turns out I do have hearing loss! It is not to the point of needing hearing aids, yet. Dr. White is not just going to test your hearing and fit you with aids if they are not needed at this point. Finding out I do in fact have hearing loss was a bit validating because it identified why I was struggling to hear in these situations. My hearing will not improve. I am so thankful that I have a baseline established so that when I follow up in a year, or before if I notice a significant change, we will be able to compare the results.
I am 48 and have hearing loss! It is not an "old person" condition! Establishing this now, I will be able to help mitigate any cognitive decline that may coincide with hearing loss when I do reach my senior years. By the way, my hearing loss is not related at all to my daughter's eardrum issue, so this is not a genetic situation. Basically, if you find yourself struggling to hear in social situations like restaurants, at a conference or meeting, or if you can't hear your kids talking to you from the back seat of the car, etc., do yourself a favor and get a baseline hearing test! You don't need to be a senior citizen to test your hearing!
Thank you Dr. White!
Kathy Rose read more
