Canadian woman opens up about hearing loss at 36: 'I couldn't hear anything' — what you need to know

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Like most people with hearing loss, it was a gradual decline for Katie Horne, a 36-year-old living in Halifax, N.S. What at first felt like relentless congestion — months where her ears couldn’t quite pop or become unplugged — turned into a shocking diagnosis.

Horne realized she wasn't picking up on nearby conversations. When a co-worker pointed out someone speaking in the hallway, Horne said she couldn't hear anything. Later, when Horne was watching TV with her parents and uncle, she kept asking them to turn up the volume. "Or to turn on some subtitles because I couldn't hear what was going on," she said.

She eventually scheduled an appointment with an audiologist. After a hearing test, the audiologist confirmed that Horne was experiencing hearing loss. "It shocked me. Up until that point, I thought I was just making a big deal out of nothing," Horne said, adding she wouldn't have expected something like this to happen to her at a young age.

Hearing loss, however, is more common than people think — even in younger people. According to 2021 Statistics Canada data, 38 per cent of people aged 20 to 79 have hearing loss. And people can lose their hearing at any age, from birth to their senior years. Some people, like "Bachelor" star Daisy Kent, or model and actress Georgia Meacham have recently opened up about their experience with hearing loss. However, there can still be some stigma around people seeking treatment, or a lack of awareness that someone might be experiencing it at all, due to its gradual nature.

Yahoo Canada recently spoke to some Canadians about their hearing loss journey, as well as an audiologist about seeking treatment and risk factors.

Many Canadians experience hearing loss: 'We're constantly bombarded with sounds'

Katie Koebel, an audiologist and senior manager at Hearing Life Canada said some common causes of hearing loss are aging, noise exposure and genetics. "Some people are genetically predisposed to develop hearing loss," Koebel said.

She explained hearing loss affects different frequencies people can hear. Often, high frequencies are affected more than low frequencies. "The high frequencies are where our consonant sounds are, and those are the sounds that give speech charity. The vowel sounds are in the low pitches and those are the sounds that give loudness to speech," said Koebel. "So most often, people will still be able to hear others talking, but it's just not clear what they're saying."

Koebel said it is oftentimes someone's significant other or a family member who will notice the issue before themselves. Someone can perhaps manage fine in one-on-one conversations but may struggle in a loud environment.

Hearing loss can go unnoticed, however, since competing sounds on the street or in a restaurant can pose a challenge for many people anyways. "It's hard to know 'Am I having the normal amount of difficulty or am I having more difficulty than I should be?,'" Koebel said, adding she recommends Canadians come in for a baseline hearing assessment.

How it works: For places like Hearing Life Canada, the initial hearing assessment is free. People are walked through their case history to see if any red flags might be causing hearing loss. After a hearing assessment is done in a sound booth, your results are given to you on the same day. A hearing professional will go through your test and will discuss options if you need them, like hearing aids.

"I think we've made some major gains with hearing technology," Koebel said, adding that hearing aids are now Bluetooth compatible and you can pair them with your TV or cell phone. "They're very smart little devices. And it's not as strange to wear something on your ears as it used to be."

Whether if someone is losing their hearing or not, Koebel said it's important to give our ears a break. She recommends giving our ears a 10-minute break if we've been listening to music, podcasts or talking on the phone. "You can't turn your ears off, they're always working, so it's up to you to manipulate your environment and give them a break," Koebel said. "Otherwise, we're constantly being bombarded with sounds."

Treating your noise-induced hearing loss

Listening to things loudly, like music through headphones or at concerts, are things that all contribute to noise-induced hearing loss. Another example is from people who work in noisy environments.

Tom Elliot, a 69-year-old in Whitehorse, Yukon, gradually lost his hearing while working over 33 years as a national park warden. "Hearing protection wasn't as commonplace as it is today," Elliot said. Noise exposure came from snowmobiles, helicopters, firearm training, using chainsaws and jet boating, among other things.

When Elliot first got his hearing aids in his late 40s, he wasn't convinced they helped much and he wouldn't wear them regularly. "It wasn't until 10 years later when I realized I could no longer hear the microwave beep when things had been warmed up without my hearing aid," he said. His hearing had declined severely. "Most frustrations are my own, missing out what's being said at funerals, weddings, plays or presentations."

Through Vancouver Community College, Elliot chose to take online Zoom courses about living with hearing loss. "[I] found them invaluable," he said. "I didn't know there were so many resources out there to help people with hearing loss challenges, be it written books, national or provincial organizations, speech-to-text apps, CI support groups, various devices, speech reading classes and hearing loss disability tax credit." He encourages anyone dealing with hearing loss also to learn more about these supports.

Meanwhile, Koebel said there are many benefits to the early intervention of hearing loss and you will do better long-term if you're treated when you're younger and adapt to hearing aids.

She added that oftentimes, people with untreated hearing loss might stop going to activities they enjoy or participating in social events because they can get frustrated or aren't getting any joy from it anymore. "Like not going to the movies because you're missing the dialogue or having coffee with a friend because you can only get half the conversation. People start to isolate themselves," Koebel said.

She added there's still a way to go with educating people and encouraging people to get tested, but with the shifts in technology, she remains hopeful.

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