Use It or Lose It

Most of us start experiencing hearing loss after the age of forty. If you're like most people, you've been putting off having your hearing tested. However, procrastinating about a hearing problem is one of the worst things you can do, according to audiologist Mark Sanford, owner of CSG Better Hearing Center, a Diamond Certified company.

The longer your problem goes untreated, the worse it gets and the more difficult it is to treat. Mr. Sanford cites a study where people whose hearing loss was equal in both ears were fitted with a hearing aid in just one ear. The other ear was left untreated. Over a ten-year period, the loss in the ear with the hearing aid changed very little. In the unaided ear, however, speech understanding decreased 20 to 60%, which made adjusting to a hearing aid on that side much more difficult.