What Percentage Is Your Hearing Loss?

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IndieVisible

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My heaing has been getting worse lately. I am at about 42% hearing loss now. My neighbor is at 80% loss.

I thought it might be interesting to report our hearing loss and may be some comment.

For me I have loss in both ears very close to the same. With out hearing aides I struggle a lot. With hearing aides I am good 90% of the time in person, and 80% of the time on phone. With out hearing aides very bad. No longer just a inconvienance its now hard work!
 
Actually, expressing hearing loss in terms of a percentage is inaccurate. The correct way to express hearing loss is by taking the first four frequencies (250 Hz, 500 Hz 750 Hz and 1000 Hz), adding them up and dividing by (I think) 4.

Here's an excellent article which explains why hearing loss is expressed in decibels instead of percentages:

Hearing Loss—Decibels or Percent?
 
Prior to receiving my CIs, I had severe-profound hearing loss and my audiogram unaided looked like this:

Left ear:
95 dB at 250 Hz
110 dB at 500 Hz
110 dB at 750 Hz
NR at 1000 Hz and above

Right ear:
95 dB at 250 Hz
100 dB at 500 Hz
100 dB at 750 Hz
NR at 1000 Hz and above

My aided responses for the left ear started at 70 dB and dropped from there with no aidable hearing at 1000 Hz and above.

Aided responses for my right ear started at 60 dB and dropped from there with no aidable hearing at 1000 Hz and above.

After both of my CI surgeries I lost all of my residual hearing, so I'm completely deaf without my implants.
 
100% on one side of my head, and 15% on the other side.

I know this is the wrong way to do it, but I'm too lazy right now to figure the correct way to express it.
 
Levonian said:
100% on one side of my head, and 15% on the other side.

I know this is the wrong way to do it, but I'm too lazy right now to figure the correct way to express it.
Click to expand...

I'm not an audi, but from what you've said, it sounds like you're totally deaf in one ear (obviously) and have mild (or moderate) loss in the other.
 
I have a profound loss in the left ear (0 residual hearing) and I have a borderline severe loss in the right ear. I believe it is around 70db loss.

Adam
 
Well the way my hearing specialist explained it to me was in %, of course she had a graph with the details.

I just thought approximate in percentage was good way to get idea.

Can we include apprx percentage too?

Thx
 
I think mine is about 90 percent on my left ear and none on my right ear due to the CI.
 
Here is another example. I have a 70 dB loss. This is not equal to a 70 percent loss by any means. In actual fact it means that the softest sound I can hear needs to be 10,000,000 times louder than the softest sound a person with normal hearing can hear. One out of ten million is definitely not a 70 per cent loss but would be a loss of 99.9999999%! Quite a difference, isn't it? Now you can see why we must never use percentages when talking about our hearing losses. They just do not equate. They are absolutely meaningless!
Click to expand...

Me= almost flat loss

Left ear= 95db loss

Right ear= 75db loss

Using the formula in the quote above that Hear Again provided, I have a loss of 99.9999999% in both of my ears.
 
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IndieVisible said:
Well the way my hearing specialist explained it to me was in %, of course she had a graph with the details.

I just thought approximate in percentage was good way to get idea.

Can we include apprx percentage too?

Thx
Click to expand...

Was your hearing specialist a "hearing aid dispenser" (as opposed to an audiologist) by any chance?
 
Hear Again said:
I'm not an audi, but from what you've said, it sounds like you're totally deaf in one ear (obviously) and have mild (or moderate) loss in the other.
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Bingo. And the loss on the good side is only in the upper frequencies. I essentially function as a hearing person, but with a hell of a lot of difficulty.
 
Hear Again said:
Was your hearing specialist a "hearing aid dispenser" (as opposed to an audiologist) by any chance?
Click to expand...

Not sure. It was the Rochester Hearing and Speach Center. They did several tests in quite room. I been going there for past 7 years. My hearing has remained the same until 2 years ago, now slight worsening in both years.
 
Right Ear - Profound Hearing Loss

Left Ear - Severe to Profound Hearing Loss
 
I have moderate to severe hearing loss.

Thank you Hear Again for giving the link. I always do wonder about the difference betwn percentage and decibels. I know it is so complicated to understand. Now I do, thank you Hear again...

My hearing had improved as years had gone by, but sometimes it may go down if you're so stress out or have ringing in your ears...

Hearing tests ALWAYS give me ringing in my ears and hard to see if I do hear the sound or not. Maybe I did, but very, very hard to tell when you do have ringing in the ear. Does it happen to anyone?

And one more thing, on my moderate ear, it is not clear. And on my severe ear, it is very clear...I was like dang...if mine was clear on the moderate ear then I pry wouldn't need a hearing aid like I have today...
 
Bilateral hearing loss of 110 to 120 dB.
 
I had several kind of tests done to me. the audio beep tests which measure the db and also the word repeating test where you repeat the word you hear at different levels. In this test they were able to measure the precentage of hearing loss I have in a general way. By the number of correct responses I gave. Obviously I did better in some frequencies, but a over all percentage was provided to me in addition to the graphs and db read outs for each ear.
 
the percentages prolly were for your speech descrimination
i.e. 90% of words understood at 65dB
 
IndieVisible said:
I had several kind of tests done to me. the audio beep tests which measure the db and also the word repeating test where you repeat the word you hear at different levels. In this test they were able to measure the precentage of hearing loss I have in a general way. By the number of correct responses I gave. Obviously I did better in some frequencies, but a over all percentage was provided to me in addition to the graphs and db read outs for each ear.
Click to expand...

It sounds to me as if you're describing your speech dicrimination results (HINT test) that are expressed in percentages and not the percentage of your hearing loss.
 
restless_heart said:
I have moderate to severe hearing loss.

Thank you Hear Again for giving the link. I always do wonder about the difference betwn percentage and decibels. I know it is so complicated to understand. Now I do, thank you Hear again...

My hearing had improved as years had gone by, but sometimes it may go down if you're so stress out or have ringing in your ears...

Hearing tests ALWAYS give me ringing in my ears and hard to see if I do hear the sound or not. Maybe I did, but very, very hard to tell when you do have ringing in the ear. Does it happen to anyone?

And one more thing, on my moderate ear, it is not clear. And on my severe ear, it is very clear...I was like dang...if mine was clear on the moderate ear then I pry wouldn't need a hearing aid like I have today...
Click to expand...

You're welcome, restless_heart. :)

By the way, I also experience tinnitus whenever I have my hearing tested (even when my CIs are on). It's very frustrating when I can't tell the difference between the beep tones and the high pitched beeping in my ears!
 
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