Frequently Asked Questions On Your Hearing

If you think you may have difficulties with your hearing or if a family member or friend has commented on your hearing, we recommend getting a hearing test to evaluate the state of your hearing. Your hearing health professional will review the results with you and outline a personalized approach to manage your hearing challenges. One option may be hearing aids, but we’ll use the information from a hearing test to guide the decision.

Hearing aids generally cost around $1200 to $3500 per aid; however, this price can vary based on your hearing needs and lifestyle. Hearing aids come in many shapes, sizes, colours and levels of technology. Our hearing health professionals will help you select the level of technology and features that will match the hearing challenges you experience and any other considerations, including lifestyle, work and budget.

Stanford Hearing has payment plans to improve the affordability of hearing aids and we have access to government programs (such as AADL, WCB, DVA and NIHB) that may provide funding for hearing aids. 

Various factors can contribute to hearing loss. The most common causes of hearing loss include:

• Ageing
• Exposure to loud noises
• Certain medications
• Infections
• Hearing or ear trauma
• Congenital factors
• Diseases

Hearing loss is complex and is often the result of a variety of factors. Our hearing tests explore the location, type and degree of your hearing loss, which can help us understand the potential causes. 

You may have hearing loss if you experience:

• Feeling tired and irritable after long conversations
• People speaking but you have to strain to understand their words
• Frequently asking people to repeat what they said
• Frequently complaining that people mumble
• Have to turn up the TV or radio
• Cannot hear the doorbell or the telephone
• It’s easier to understand people by looking at them when they speak

If you have any of these signs, see a hearing specialist to have your hearing tested. In a full hearing assessment, Stanford Hearing Centre will determine the type and degree of hearing loss, the function of your middle ear to ensure that there are no medical concerns, and your ability to understand speech.

Expect to be asked questions about your hearing difficulties, health history and general lifestyle. This allows us to better understand your specific lifestyle needs and goals. We will use an otoscope to look into your ears, and the hearing tests will be non-invasive and painless. Based on your results, we will make recommendations for treatment if necessary.

Yes. If hearing aids are your best treatment option, we guarantee economical choices that consider your unique lifestyle. If you are ready to move forward but not sure how much benefit you will get from amplification, Stanford Hearing Centre can help you make the right decision by offering you a minimum two-week hearing aid trial. 

Hearing loss in both ears is best managed with two hearing aids. Binaural hearing provides the most natural hearing experience while maximizing the brain’s ability to localize sounds and prevent auditory deprivation (the loss of ability to hear due to a lack of sound stimulation to hearing nerves). 

Binaural hearing also helps with the ability to make sense of speech in noisy situations by helping you to disregard the background noise and focus on speech and understanding. Statistics prove that understanding with two hearing aids is substantially better than with one hearing aid – just like our eyes, our ears are meant to work in a pair. We will only recommend one hearing aid if your hearing loss only exists in one ear, but it is rare to experience an asymmetrical hearing loss. 

Tinnitus is when you experience ringing or other noises in one or both of your ears when no external sounds are present. Tinnitus is usually caused by an underlying condition, such as age-related hearing loss, an ear injury or a problem with the circulatory system. It is most often described as:

• Ringing in the ears
• Buzzing
• Humming

Most people who have tinnitus have subjective tinnitus (which is tinnitus that only you can hear). Tinnitus may be present all the time, or it may come and go.

There is no cure for tinnitus, but there are technologies and therapies available to manage the impacts of tinnitus. For example, many hearing aids have tinnitus masking features that assist in reducing the impacts of tinnitus.