Mild hearing loss but everyone is mumbling!

Thanks. I don’t have APD.

So why do you think you’re struggling with normal levels of speech ‘from men’ when your pure tone loss is pretty mild?

Your description is pretty much textbook CAPD.

Do you understand female voices without issue?

Have you considered genetic hearing loss testing? Some health plans will pay for this now.

I also have a cookie bite audiogram and have always experienced the same ability to hear but difficulty to understand that you have described. HAs have helped a lot, but even with them on I sometimes need to get people to repeat themselves, even in a quiet environment. Let’s not even talk about trying to decipher people with a strong accent.

Not without issue but I have more trouble with lower voices.

We’re close to having gene therapies for certain types of hearing loss. There are multiple studies at the moment having good success in kids. So it may not matter practically today but it could soon.

Knowledge might help frame your experience which is a practical aspect. Each person has to decide what one wants to know.

Hello there, yes, I can totally relate to you. My hearing loss is not that bad, either, but I often feel that people are mumbling. It really depends on the acoustics, the way people are looking, the level of background noise, etc. Even hearing aids don’t “cure” this issue, although they help. When I first noticed that something was wrong, I had a very minor loss in the very high frequencies in one ear. My doctor claimed that I could not possibly have noticed that loss, but somehow I did. I’m thinking that perhaps I have some level of hidden hearing loss? I also realised that the more I pay attention to what I miss in speech, the worse it tends to get, so there is definitely also a psychological component to it, at least for me. Not sure it that’s helpful….

I used to be on here more but browse occasionally and rarely post.

I felt the need to respond because I COMPLETELY understand. I actually have a slightly harder time with women’s voices - mostly due to the higher pitch, although that’s for my specific loss. However, my hearing loss is not bad, my aids are new and programmed correctly, but I get comprehension issues which drive me insane. The only thing I’ve been able to do is ask ‘can you repeat that’ and if the person doesn’t want to then we don’t have to have a conversation. The people that know I have a hearing issue that are real friends understand that I can’t hear everything.

I have felt gaslit by audiologists who say I have mild hearing loss like “no big deal”, and do not acknowledge (may not be familiar with this type of hearing loss) how disabling it is functionally. I can’t understand emergency instructions during a fire drill at work. I can’t help someone unless I can understand them. Including my family. I’ve misunderstood countless messages and instructions because I don’t understand key words.

When I had a free 3-day trial with Starkey hearing aids, it was like the moment the Wizard of Oz switched to technicolor. My family was astounded at what I could understand. I couldn’t believe everything I had been missing. For 3 days we played around to see how much I could understand. It was light night and day. I likened it to when a color blind person wears those special glasses and see color for the first time.

I’ve been living with this for as long as I can remember (I’m almost 56) and only this year did someone suggest hearing aids. I thought I had to live like this because I had only mild hearing loss.

Anyone else out there with a similar experience: you are not crazy. Your hearing loss may be mild, but your impairment is not.

The scale names are not ideal because mild can be misleading. On the other hand switching to a number scale would probably not do justice to severe and profound.

I also wonder if some audiologists do not want hearing aid returns from patients with mild or think their overpriced model means those patients will not purchase or is unfair to those patients.

Age related loss dominates and genetic losses missed by pediatrics need more attention. Everyone with loss should at least try hearing aids. Imagine it eye doctors took a similar approach with glasses.

Fist bump!

I’m mild loss - and in theory stronger in the range of speech - but (without aids) there’s no clarity, it’s as if I’m underwater. There are particular voices I find incredibly hard to understand, both male and female, it doesn’t seem to be so much about pitch as about whether they are “softly spoken” or speak in a monotone.

I’m also an Italian speaker and I have to say I find it easier to understand because it is a language that is much more staccato, impossible to speak in a monotone and more expressive so easier to lip-read.

Understating some voices and speakers is difficult for those with normal hearing too.