If you have a hearing issue, it might be a problem with your ear’s ability to conduct sound or your brain’s ability to process impulses or both depending on your exact symptoms.
Your ability to process sound is influenced by several variables such as overall health, age, brain function, and genetics. You could be dealing with one of the following types of hearing loss if you have the frustrating experience of hearing people speak but not being able to comprehend what they are saying.
Conductive Hearing Loss
You may be suffering from conductive hearing loss if you have to continuously swallow and yank on your ears while saying with increasing irritation “There’s something in my ear”. The ear’s ability to conduct sound to the brain is diminished by problems to the outer and middle ear including wax buildup, ear infections, eardrum damage, and buildup of fluid. You may still be capable of hearing some people with louder voices while only partly hearing people with lower voices depending on the severity of your hearing loss.
Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Where conductive hearing loss can be brought on by outer- and middle-ear issues, Sensorineural hearing loss impacts the inner ear. Damage to the inner ear’s hair-like cells or the auditory nerve itself can block sound signals to the brain. Voices may sound slurred or unclean to you, and sounds can sound as either too high or too low. If you cannot distinguish voices from background noise or have a hard time hearing women and children’s voices in particular, then you might be experiencing high-frequency hearing loss.
