Do Hearing Tests Cause Pain?

If you have a hearing test coming up, you’re probably feeling a little anxious, especially if this is your first-ever hearing test. So, if you’re feeling nervous about your upcoming exam, then there is some good news for you! You don’t have to be scared! Hearing tests are completely painless. Let’s take a look at hearing tests, so you can feel rest assured that this will be a pain-free experience!

What Happens During a Hearing Test?

While there are different types of hearing tests, the most basic one that everyone experiences are completely pain-free and noninvasive. During the hearing test, you’ll wear headphones that send sounds of different volumes and pitches to one ear. You’ll have to listen carefully and respond by raising your hand or pressing a button each time you hear a sound.

Your ears convert these sound waves into nerve impulses that travel to your brain. Your hearing test measures how well you can receive these signals to identify your hearing loss. This is known as the pure-tone test, and its entirely pain-free. The volume won’t be loud enough to hurt your ears, either.

Afterward, your hearing health professional will present you with an audiogram graph, which displays the tones’ frequency and volume. This will show how your hearing varies by frequency and if there are any dips in one or more frequencies. Usually, you can expect other tests to go with this.

What Are Other Tests That Happen?

While the pure-tone test is the most common one that your hearing health professional will give you, there is the expectation that other tests will happen as well. This includes the speech test. Your hearing health professional will ask you to repeat the words that you hear in the earphone. This can include hearing a conversation with a lot of background noise.

Are There Any Further Tests?

While it will depend on your hearing health professional, there is a chance that you may need to have the tympanometry. This test is slightly invasive, but it’s far from painful. During the tympanometry, you can expect to insert a small piece into your ear. This small insert resembles an earbud. You can expect a small puff of ear to be released, as this will measure the movement within your eardrums.

Why is this needed? Well, this will allow your hearing health professional to look into your middle ear and its health. Overall, this is going to help determine if there are any issues and if there is any excess fluid behind the eardrum.

What Happens at The End?

After everything is finished, your hearing health professional will review the results with you. You can count on them to discuss the next steps, and this can include giving you recommendations so you can better improve your hearing health. Overall, the entire process is going to be completely pain-free from start to finish. At most, you only need to worry about how firm your hearing health professional handshake is. This is, by far, one of the most seamless and pain-free medical exams there is.