Low Frequency Hearing Loss

What is low-frequency hearing loss?

Hearing loss is sadly a common thing that happens as we grow older. We also know that there are certain patterns that the hearing loss follows, and understanding them can help you realize and influence your hearing loss to some degree.

“As we grow older we start to lose the ability to hear high frequencies.”

Already at mid-twenties, we have trouble hearing the same high frequencies that we could just a few years back.

Women and children start to be more difficult to understand. This is the most common hearing loss and the one that the hearing aid is designed for.

But we are here to talk about the exact opposite which is the low-frequency hearing loss.  There are people that can hear women better than men and have a hard time hearing roars of loud machinery. As you can conclude, this is a very rare hearing loss.

“There are several causes of this uncommon hearing loss, and generally, the cause is either disease or heredity.”

Hereditary low-frequency hearing loss

This means that people can be born with a genetic mutation of the hair cells which limits low-frequency hearing.

Another known cause is Meniere’s disease which is the deterioration of the ear membrane over time. Some cases of childhood illness, ear infection or injury can also lead to low-frequency hearing loss.

Meniere’s Disease

Is a rare condition, other than weakening the ear membrane also causes:

• Occasional vertigo
• Ear ringing
• Nausea
• The feeling of stuffed ears
• Falling uncontrollably

The ones who suffer this disease can feel really exhausted after these occurrences. The low frequency is one of the milder symptoms of this unfortunate disease.

Genetic Factor

This means that this condition can be traced back to several generations, and the people inheriting this condition, usually lose the ability to hear low frequency at a very early age. But children with this type of hearing loss don’t need any speech therapy as they have the ability to hear and recognize voices.

The diseases that cause low-frequency hearing loss in children are Chicken Pox and Measles, but these are very rare cases and with vaccination theses cases are even more reduced.

People with low-frequency hearing loss have a totally different experience than people with high-frequency hearing loss. They hear consonant sounds as higher-pitched than vowel sounds and they are easier to hear.

Loud machinery, traffic, or thunder are difficult to hear by persons suffering from this condition, not being able to hear sounds of traffic is one of the dangerous aspects of this condition.

“As with any form of hearing loss, it is very important to get the right treatment and right hearing aids.”

Consulting an audiologist is highly recommended. Nothing is more frustrating than paying a lot of money for a randomly chosen hearing aid that will increase sounds that you don’t want and cause even more unnecessary stress.

Find out what kind of hearing loss you are suffering from and then find the hearing aid that suits you.