Many of us take our hearing for granted. Yet, we would most certainly notice it if it were to decline or be gone altogether. The good news is that by taking better care of our ears we can help to preserve our hearing. Read on to find out more below.
Never use cotton ear swabs
They say you should never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear and with good reason. While people believe that using cotton swabs cleans their ears of wax, all it does is push most of the wax further into the ear canal where it can become impacted and create a much more serious problem. That’s not all though, if you are very unlucky a cotton ear swab can be pushed further into the ear canal than it should and rupture the eardrum. This is a very painful issue and can seriously impact your ear health and hearing.
To that end, if you need your ears cleaned it’s best to leave it to the professionals. Indeed, you can get your ears professionally syringed at your doctor’s office, or your ear health provider, and these trained experts will ensure your ears stay healthy and safe through the process.
Get regular hearing check-ups
Likely, you regularly attend all sorts of health checks including checkups at your doctors, eye tests and the dentist. But do you get regular checkups for your hearing health? Sadly many people don’t and this often leads to hearing issues becoming much more pronounced before they get the treatment they need.
Unfortunately, untreated hearing issues are linked with a range of problems from issues with communication in relationships, to fatigue and even dementia. With that in mind, making sure you attend regular hearing checkups is a must.
If you have a hearing aid, be sure to wear it
Investing in hearing aids is a sound choice as they can greatly improve your quality of hearing, and help reduce the risk of conditions associated with hearing loss such as dementia. However, they won’t be able to do all this hard work if they sit in their box in your dresser at home! That’s right to reap all the benefits of wearing your hearing aid you have to actually wear it.
Of course, sometimes some things prevent people from wearing their hearing aids, such as embarrassment or discomfort. The good news is that your audiologist will be able to help you with such issues and ensure you are as comfortable wearing your hearing aids as possible.
Turn down your headphone volume
If you wear headphones to listen to music, audiobooks, podcasts or videos on your phone, then it’s a good idea to make sure that your volume is not too high. This is because extended exposure to high-volume noises, especially through headphones which are very close to the inner ear, can cause damage over the long term.
Most phones do have user controls which will allow you to set the maximum volume that your earphones can get up to. Your phone may also even offer you an earphone safety report so you can see if you are at risk of potential hearing damage and take the appropriate action to minimise this danger.