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Listening Fatigue

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Hello,

I gain knowledge and confidence every time I read about hearing loss.

I wrote this post after learning about listening fatigue. Please feel free to share your thoughts or to correct me on any points!

Listening Fatigue Is The Reveal71

No one else should go through what I experienced from confusion and lack of self-confidence for such a long time, just for not understanding how hearing loss affected my daily life.

Thanks to all that I read, I can navigate life with my eyes open and I hope through my posts, I’ll save someone else the pain I went through.

6 people in this conversation6 min readJump to latest

I get so flustered with people that either don’t accept the fact that hearing aids isn’t the fix like glasses. And the ones that get offended and belligerent when you ask them to repeat a sentence. And I find that our so called customer service people are the worse.

I enjoyed reading your article! The description of the experience of counting change as being challenging for a brain that is already working to hear was clear and helpful! Thanks for sharing it!

I enjoyed the article, Zeeza. Thank you very much for sharing it.

Dyscalculia is proven science. For example, I used math intensively in my career. Constant in-the-head calculations were normal part of each day. No Problem!

At this point, math has nearly stopped. (12 times 12 equals “how do I figure that out?”.) & other tests revealed demyelinating of nerves where math is processed is to blame.

And, to no surprise, my hearing loss is nearly all from the same cause, but different areas of the brain. (Plus some memory challenges and other stuff.)

For certain, I get very “tired” of listening at times. It really causes fatigue. I simply shut down.

Thankfully I was able to have good hearing aids and a great audiologist/neurotologist team to adjust things in order to retrain my brain to establish different neuropathways for certain sounds. (I may not hear a particular frequency the same as others, but I now hear it. Far fewer tonal gaps exist.)

By fortunate circumstance, one of my brothers is one of the world’s top- if not the top- neuro-psychiatrist. He was & is beyond helpful is explaining the “How’s and Why’s” of how all of this works. The most frequent word I heard from him when I first got real hearing aids was “Patience”.

He was correct. After sone few months, not only do the devices help more and the listening fatigue less- but many sounds I could not hear with the aids, I can now hear with them. And, some sounds I could not hear without the aids, I can now hear without the aids.

One can not believe how thankful I am that our Creator allowed me the people & resources to hear better. Happily, I recently heard crickets for the first time in decades!

Thanks again for posting the article!

Paul

@cvkemp said:

And the ones that get offended and belligerent when you ask them to repeat a sentence.

I totally relate to that. The expression I see on their faces when I asl them to repeat or when they roll their eyes is the most I hate.

@birdcountry99 said:

I enjoyed reading your article!

Thanks for reading and commenting!

@PJB12 said:

Thankfully I was able to have good hearing aids and a great audiologist/neurotologist team

Is it okay to ask when you lost hearing and when you started using hearing aids?

I also can’t see your !

I don’t know whether I have dyscalculia over and above hearing loss! You’re lucky for having understood your situation so you can act accordingly!

Edited

Hello Zeeza,

You asked when I lost some hearing & when I started wearing aids. I was diagnosed with hearing loss as a young child. I only recently (few months) received my first set of useful hearing aids.

When young, I didn’t know the reason for not having hearing aids. It may have been available resources at home. Perhaps the technology of the time wasn’t sufficient to assist.

When a young adult, I had to hide hearing loss from my employer (police officer in a large city). And, after changing careers, I had some bad experiences with providers over the years, so I gave up on the idea.

I learned from several of my many siblings in the last year that hearing aids which actually help are available, as are audiologists, neurotologists and otologists. Based on that, I re-addressed the hearing loss this year.

Results so far? Sometimes all sunshine and roses. Sometimes, can’t tolerate them. Sometimes they help, sometimes not. I’d imagine in time I will very much appreciate having them.

You mentioned not knowing if you have dyscalculia.

If you would like to pursue it, I think an Educational Psychologist or Learning Specialist Psychologist specializing in developmental challenges would be a good resource for either testing or for referral to a colleague who tests adults.

Your general practice physician most likely will be a good source of referral. (I had referral easy. My mother was a Ph.D. school psychologist with a specialist degree for young adult criminals. She had good testing referrals for me.)

I remember the Wechsler Individual Achievement test, the Math Triple test and Woodcock/Johnson test methods.

Based upon the test results, you will be referred to the type of professional best suited to help.

Please, please, please don’t self-assess with an on-line “accurate” test! See a professional for testing.

I hope this helps. I’d certainly not hesitate to get tested. What can it hurt?

Paul

That is a very “sharing” article! I don’t have trouble counting change, but while in radio journalism at college, I simply could not tell the TIME if the clock was analog - i.e., it had the numbers on the round dial face. I could only announce the time if I had a digital clock to read off, like “12:15” or some such.

Now, any glance at my will tell you I’m about as deaf as a cinderblock, but in college, I was hovering at about the 40-60 range across the board. So hard of hearing but not HOPELESS without aids as I am now.

Even so, I’d get anxious sitting in the booth reading the news and then having to announce the time about 3 times during the program. I’d take a deeeeeep breath, pause for about 5 endless seconds, give it a try, and half the time blurt out the WRONG time. It was almost comical except that I had no explanation for why it happened. Perhaps this could also be a function of dyscalculia?

If not, I’ll invent a new condition and call it dysclockulia.

In reply to @PJB12

@PJB12 said:

Your general practice physician most likely will be a good source of referral.

Thanks so much for sharing your story with hearing loss! I relate to many points you mentioned from being hard of hearing since a young age up to not knowing why I didn’t have any asistance or education on hearing loss!

I must admit that I don’t have a general practice physician. Things are done differently in Egypt and follow long bureaucratic procedures.

Thankfully, I don’t have to do a lot of math work in my daily life so I’m safe so far. As for paying in stores, I started to pay with visa so I don’t have to count change. :smiley:

In reply to @1Bluejay

@1Bluejay said:

I’d take a deeeeeep breath, pause for about 5 endless seconds, give it a try, and half the time blurt out the WRONG time.

Thanks for sharing your experience on telling the time with us, @1Bluejay!

On another note, I’ve been trying to do a lot of deep breaths recently, hoping it calms my mind. I also try it when I ride the bike, and it works.

Listening fatigue is very real. A friend of mine wrote this article on listening fatigue. I found the article very factual.

Understanding Listening Fatigue for People with Hearing Loss20

I haven’t always been involved in the world of hearing care. My early passion was mathematics, and I thrived in computer programming. This led me to pursue a higher education and career in In…

This article was what inspired me to write my post. Thank you!

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