And if they are right for you, boy does Injoy Hearing Aids have your back! But first, let’s look at what can make you need a hearing aid in the first place.
You may have already noticed that your hearing is going bad, and you didn’t really realize it.
Some of the signs include things like:
Does any of this sound familiar (pardon the pun)? If so, you should probably seek some help. Life is too short to miss out on sharing the sounds of joy.
That’s why the experts at Injoy provide quality help for people suffering hearing loss! Our first way to help you answer “Do I need a hearing aid?” is to share the knowledge on hearing, so you can make informed decisions.
The way we hear is actually an amazing and surprising process. It involves tissue, bone, and even hair, to convey Mozart, Metallica, or mom’s sweet voice.
To begin with, your ear consists of three major areas: the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear.
Your outer ear structures include the visible part of the ear (pinna) and the ear canal.
The cup-shaped pinna (PIN-uh) gathers sound waves from the environment. It acts as a parabolic collector, like those microphones you see in spy movies that have big, round parabolic dishes attached.
The pinna works to gather and reflect the sound into the ear canal (external auditory meatus). This guides the soundwaves to the mechanisms in your middle ear.
The middle ear consists of an air-filled cavity with 3 bones residing in it: the hammer (malleus), the anvil (incus) and the stirrup (stapes). The eardrum (tympanic membrane) separates these bones from the outer ear.
Sound travels through the ear canal and hits the eardrum, which vibrates. Those vibrations cause the bones in the middle ear to also vibrate, which transfers the sound to the “oval window.”
Interestingly, the middle ear itself works to amplify the incoming sound. The sound wave pressure on the oval window can be up to 20 times higher than on the eardrum.
The middle ear connects to the upper part of your throat by narrow channels called auditory tubes (eustachian tubes). These tubes open and close to equalize the pressure in the middle ear with that of your environment.
Have you felt pressure in your ears when going up or down in elevation? That’s the pressure in your eustachian tubes. When you yawn to make the pressure go away, that causes the eustachian tubes to open, equalizing the pressure.
Equal pressure on both sides of the eardrum is important for the normal vibration of the eardrum.
The auditory tubes also function as a fluid drainage system.
Behind the oval window, your inner ear contains a group of interconnected, fluid-filled chambers.
The first is a snail-shaped chamber, called the cochlea (KOK-lee-uh). Your cochlea plays a key role in hearing. The sound vibrations from middle ear bones transfer through the oval window to the fluids of the cochlea. This causes tiny sensors (hair cells) lining the cochlea to move. The sensation of this movement converts into electrical nerve impulses, and zip along the auditory nerve to your brain.
Those extremely important, fragile hairs incur the initial damage that results in hearing loss. It can be caused by age, noise exposure, or medication.
The other fluid-filled chambers of the inner ear include three tubes called the semicircular canals (vestibular labyrinth). More fragile hair cells in the semicircular canals detect the motion of the fluid when you move in any direction.
When the fluid sways them, they convert the motion into electrical signals transmitted along the vestibular nerve to the brain. You keep your balance because of this sensory information.
That’s why spinning can make you dizzy; the motion agitates the hairs in the semicircular canal, and make you off-balance, often to the hilarity of your friends. #thanksfornothing
Connecting the Dots
Let’s put all that science together:
Do I need a hearing aid? That depends. Injoy offers help in many ways—by phone, online, and through our free online hearing test. However, it’s important to see your primary care physician if you have a sudden loss of hearing, particularly in one ear.
If you experience anything like this, please seek immediate medical attention first, and immediately. Don’t wait! The sooner you react to sudden hearing loss, the better chance you have at regaining your hearing.
And we always recommend regular health checkups, including testing your hearing. You might be able to improve your ability to hear much earlier in life, or address health issues that could cause detrimental effects later if left untreated.
There are different types of hearing loss. When you know their meaning, you can talk one-to-one with your hearing specialist or primary care provider.
Hearing loss is defined as one of three types:
Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try, it’s common for hearing loss to gradually occur to greater or lesser degrees as we age (presbycusis). Almost half the population of the United States older than age 65 have some degree of hearing loss. They’re asking the same question in conversations, at restaurants, at home: Do I need a hearing aid?
You can’t reverse most types of hearing loss, unfortunately. Here’s the good news, though: you and your Injoy specialist can work together to improve what you hear!
There are several causes for hearing loss. Here are the most common.
Drugs can cause temporary or permanent hearing loss.
For example, the antibiotic gentamicin, the wellness supplement sildenafil (Viagra), and certain chemotherapy drugs, can damage the inner ear. Temporary effects on your hearing can include singing in the ear (tinnitus) or hearing loss.
These issues can also occur if you take very high doses of aspirin, other pain relievers, antimalarial drugs, or loop diuretics. Always ask your doctor about prescriptions, and read the “side effects” of your medications, whether prescription or over the counter.
Exposure to loud sounds can damage the cells of your inner ear. Ever been to a concert or a stadium sports event, and afterwards sound seems muffled? That’s because the sound has traumatized your inner ear mechanisms.
That damage can occur with long-term exposure, or from a short blast of noise. Cannon fire, guns firing, even sudden and loud feedback from speakers can cause hearing loss.
Your hearing loss could be a family trait passed down, or just a genetic fluke. Whichever way, you could be more susceptible to ear damage from sound or deterioration from aging.
A loud jobsite can cause hearing loss. Farming, construction, factories, airports, if it’s constantly loud, you need to wear ear protection to bring those decibels down. Otherwise the noise environment can lead to damage inside your ear.
Exposure to explosive or loud noises, such as from firearms or while listening to recorded/live music, can cause immediate, permanent hearing loss. Other recreational activities with dangerously high noise levels include snowmobiling, motorcycling, carpentry, or wearing headphones to blast the sound from video games.
You may know someone who had “mumps,” and ended up losing hearing in an ear. Sickness can not only clog your ears for a bit, it can cause hearing loss that’s permanent. Some diseases or illnesses that result in high fever, such as meningitis, may damage the cochlea.
As you age, hair often recedes from your head and seems to migrate wherever you don’t want it to. In the same vein, your inner ear hair cells, the ones that actually generate the nerve impulses that become your hearing, can recede—and they don’t come back. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, degrading your ability to hear well.
Curious about what constitutes a safe (or unsafe) level of noise in your environment?
The chart below lists common sounds you’ll encounter at home, work, wherever you go—and their corresponding decibel levels. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines safe noise as having a level limit at 70 decibels or under.
The louder the noise, the less time it takes to cause permanent hearing damage, and the faster you’ll be wondering “Do I need a hearing aid?”
Decibels Noise Source
30 Whisper
40 Refrigerator
60 Normal Conversation
75 Dishwasher
Dangerous Noise Sound Levels
Decibels Noise Source
85 Heavy City Traffic, School Cafeteria
95 Motorcycle
100 Snowmobile
110 Chain Saw, Jackhammer, Rock Concert, Symphony
115 Sandblasting
120 Ambulance Siren, Thunder
140-165 Firecracker, Firearms
Here are the maximum legal noise levels and durations for jobs without hearing protection. Numbers are based on occupational safety & health administration reports from 2008
Decibels Duration Daily
90 8 Hours
92 6 Hours
95 4 Hours
97 3 Hours
100 2 Hours
102 1.5 Hours
105 1 Hour
110 30 Minutes
115 15 Minutes or Less
The psychological impact of hearing loss on older adults can cause or contribute greatly to issues such as:
Hearing loss can make conversations difficult. It can cause the people around you to become annoyed because you ask them to repeat themselves, or you have to listen to media (TV, radio, computer) at levels they find uncomfortable.
Hearing loss doesn’t have to define you. Check with your doctor for help to see if the issue is caused by a medical condition. And Injoy is here for you to help fight the results of hearing loss with our awesome, easy-to-use hearing aids.
What are some examples of hearing loss? You might ask yourself “do I need a hearing aid?” if any of these scenarios seem familiar to you:
We hear you. And that’s why Injoy works day and night to help you hear them! With Bluetooth-compatible Injoy hearing aids, you can listen to a phone conversation through the hearing aids in both ears! Now that makes it much easier to enjoy your facetime call or a conversation with your loved ones.
Of course you can, with Injoy!
Our process for identifying hearing loss, and addressing it, is super-easy. We even offer a zero-money-down, we-don’t-charge-you-a-single-dime free trial that allows you to test out our hearing aids with—and we can’t stress this hard enough—nothing out of your pocket!
If you love them, keep them and only then do you pay for them. Otherwise, if you feel they’re not 100% right for you, return them no-questions-asked within the trial period. No worries about getting money refunded, no hassles with your credit cards. You can answer “do I need a hearing aid?” by trying them, and comparing the results to when you’re without them.
You’re trusting Injoy to help you address your hearing loss. We trust you to make the right decision on your hearing aid performance. We’re not here to make a sale, we’re here to provide excellent products with exceptional service. Compare us to others. We don’t mind.
Our results sell themselves. #simpleandtrue
Now that you understand fully how hearing works, and you’re exploring how Injoy can help you hear better, there are some things you can do on your own to improve and protect your hearing.
Consider limiting the duration and intensity of your exposure to noise. This simple action offers the best protection for your hearing.
In the workplace, ask management about wearing plastic earplugs or glycerin-filled earmuffs, as they can help protect your ears from damaging noise.
As part of your personal healthcare, get regular hearing tests from your physician—especially if you work in a noisy environment. If you think you may have lost some hearing, these tests can help you take steps to prevent further loss. And they can definitively answer the question “do I need a hearing aid?”
Love riding a snowmobile, hunting, using power tools, or listening to rock concerts? A lot of people do—and a lot of people damage their hearing over time. Wearing hearing protectors or taking breaks from the noise can help protect your hearing. And sorry rock and rollers, but turning the volume down from 11 helps, too.
Here’s something you might not have known about the hazards of smoking: research indicates that smoking can increase your hearing loss risk by double or more.
Blood flow and oxygen are crucial for the health of your inner ear cells. Both of these are hampered by nicotine and carbon monoxide. Add to that the irritation smoking can cause to your middle ear lining and eustachian tubes. It’s just plain not good for you.
Smoking also irritates the lining of your middle ear and disturbs the normal function of your cochlea.
Excessive ear wax buildup can affect your hearing and make sounds seem muffled. Here’s the deal: please don’t attempt to remove it yourself. Scraping the delicate lining of the ear canal can damage it. Your primary care provider can help you remove the excess build up.
Also, if you try to dig it out yourself, you could end up jamming it deeper, and you could damage your eardrum. That damage could be irreversible, so check with your doctor first.
As part of your doctor checkups, have them run tests on your hearing, too. These can expose the early signs of hearing loss, and improve your chances of fixing the issues causing it. It also gives you a baseline for comparing your hearing as you age.
The idea is to keep your hearing as good as it can be, for a life full of sounds you love to hear.
Have you clicked through to take our hearing test online? It’s free and it’s easy. Just have some headphones/earbuds handy, because our audiologist-designed online hearing test will see how well each ear works.
The test costs nothing, and can provide immediate proof where improvements can be made if they’re needed. It can also give you a big “thumbs up” on your current hearing, and let you know you don’t need Injoy hearing aids. That’s free peace of mind. Come get some today!
Technically, no—you can get by with one hearing aid. But you can also get by wearing one glove, or having a corrective lens in only one side of your glasses, right? If you need hearing aids to hear better, you’ll be 100% improved when you hear better in both ears. It’s the old saying “two is better than one, one is better than none.”
If you already have hearing aids, you probably know that in time they either wear out, or lose their functional appeal. Technology advances constantly, and new hearing aids may give you what your 3, 4, 5, or more year-old hearing aids don’t. The fact is, 50% of all hearing aids sold go to existing users.
If your hearing has lost 15 to 20 decibels worth of ability, meaning you have to increase everything you hear by 15 to 20 decibels to understand it, you’ve got hearing loss.
But the biggest defining quality is your perception. Do you feel that hearing better will improve your quality of life? Is it worth the effort to improve your hearing? You can hear—but can you hear well? Only you can answer these questions. At Injoy, we bet the answer is “yes,” because improved hearing has helped thousands of our customers live more joyously.
The struggle from hearing loss is the same no matter what your age is. Don’t ask if you’re old enough for a hearing aid. Ask if you’re the right age to choose to hear better.
Do I need a hearing aid? If the answer is yes, Injoy has options for functionality, and service that will let you run with it, or walk every step of the way with you. With Injoy, you get in control of your hearing loss, for happier hearing every day.
Injoy. Listen. Hear. Live!
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Finding the perfect gift for someone with hearing loss doesn’t have to be a challenge. Whether your loved one is an active adventurer, a homebody,
Injoy specializes in crafting custom Phonak hearing aid solutions tailored to the unique hearing needs of our patients. With a team recognized as the best in the business and decades of experience in helping people nationwide, we’re dedicated to improving your hearing and, consequently, enhancing your quality of life.
To start your journey towards better hearing with confidence, Injoy is proud to offer a 30-day risk-free hearing aid trial. This allows you to experience the difference our Phonak hearing aids can make, ensuring they meet your expectations and fit your lifestyle perfectly.
Improve your hearing and improve your life today by contacting Injoy to learn more about our risk-free trial!
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Hear better for the Holidays! all our Hearing Aids Receive Our Premium Package At No Extra Cost With Purchase.
Plus, injoy our best pricing ever on phonak sphere/infinio & Starkey Edge hearing aids for a limited time.
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*Same-day programming and Fast shipping are available when a valid audiogram is provided on the day of purchase and the selected hearing aids are in stock. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate delayed audiogram submissions or out-of-stock models.
