Hear Well After Fifty

Robert Ashworth

Writes for Hear Well After Fifty

About

Thirty years as a school principal in suburban Boston. Eight years teaching in the same district before that. Public school buildings are loud in ways you stop noticing after a while -- hallways between classes, the cafeteria at noon, a gymnasium during a close game. I was in those environments every working day for thirty-eight years and by the time I retired had a convenient theory that any hearing loss was occupational and expected. Convenient because it meant I did not have to do anything about it.

My wife was more observant than I was. She had been asking me to turn down the TV and repeating things she had just told me for about two years before the Thanksgiving that got me to act. I missed my granddaughter's first real sentence. She was three feet away from me. I nodded when the table reacted. Found out later from my son what she had said -- something about wanting the bread. Everyone else had caught it.

I went to an audiologist, got fitted for hearing aids, and started wearing them. The difference was bigger than I had expected, which told me something about how much I had been compensating without realizing -- choosing the quieter end of the table, leaning toward the person speaking, reading faces. After a few months I started reading about supplements. Found the field scattered: big promises from some, nothing useful from others. So I started my own log. A simple weekly note on how conversations felt in the situations I care about most: restaurants with background noise, phone calls without visual cues, Sunday church with bad acoustics, family dinners where everyone talks over each other. Not scores on a test. Whether I could follow what was being said without asking people to repeat themselves.

I have been doing this for about two years. Tried four supplements, with gaps between each to separate the effects. Have formed clear views on all of them.

I am not a doctor. Not an audiologist. Not any kind of health professional. These are personal observations from someone who decided to track things carefully. If you are experiencing hearing decline, please see an audiologist who can actually measure what is happening and make recommendations based on your specific situation.

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Disclosure

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only write about supplements I have personally tested alongside my hearing aids. Commission has no effect on what I report -- if a supplement did nothing, the post says so.