I had my hearing tested!

 I had my hearing tested

            On Friday, Dr. Gwen Deevy tested my hearing.  First she looked in my ears.  There was wax in my right ear.  She very carefully removed the wax with a tool.  She reminded me to never, never, never use Q-tips to remove wax.  I told her that I don’t even have any Q-tips at my home.  The left ear was perfectly clear of wax. 

            We went into a sound proof booth with a double door designed for hearing testing. It was very quiet.  Next, she put a set of earphones on my ears.  The red one went on my right ear and the blue one went on my left ear.  She gave me a clicker with a button.  When I heard the tones, I was to push the button to let her know I heard it. 

            Dr. Deevy presented tones in the right ear first and I pushed the button.  After a series of tones ranging from high pitches to low pitches, she switched to test my left ear. Then, she told me to repeat the words that I heard even if I had to guess.  The words got really soft.  This is called speech reception threshold testing.  The test is designed to see how soft I can understand words.  The results should be consistent with my responses to the tones.  Then she tested to see how well I understood speech at a comfortable level. This is called speech discrimination testing.

            We found my patient file.  I had had a test in 2008, so we were able to compare the 2008 results with the 2013 results.  I am happy to report that my hearing has NOT changed since 2008.  The results are normal hearing with a mild high frequency hearing loss in both ears.  The loss is not significant enough to warrant hearing aids at this time.  My word discrimination scores were 100% in each ear!  Yeah! 

            I was happy to report that I still have good hearing.  But, I am only able to report that because I had a test.  Most of my friends, who know I am an audiologist, have not had a hearing test.  Most of them want their spouse to have a hearing test, just like my husband wanted me to have a hearing test!  But, you can’t report good hearing unless you have had a hearing test.