Percent or dbl?

[kuntrykyd]

Hi all, I am just wondering, I have noticed in the past few years, that alot of people measure their hearing losses in "percents". Do your audiologists tell you your loss in percents?
I myself had always referred to it as a "percent" loss until I realized one day that it was actually in dbl...(decible loss).
Then I got to noticing that it actually does not say "percent" on my audiogram, I think I just didnt realize it any other way.
My own loss is 105 dbl in one ear, 98 dbl in the other. But to explain it to a hearing person, they seem to understand the greatness of the loss if you say it in percents.
What do you think?

 

[darkangel8603]

its true its harder to explain to a hearing person who has no awareness of deafness about DB and is easier to explain in percent.. But for myself I use DB cuz I dont know the percent of it..

my DB is 80-129DB

 

[deafdyke]

the percentage thing is really a myth...you really can't figure it out via percentage....I've got a moderatly severe loss and can't hear things worth anything!

 

[juliae]

I agree w/u deafdyke about losses, my loss on paper doesnt look so bad but day to day I have a really hard time communicating. And I cant use hearing aids which doesnt help although Im getting some kinda amplifier thingy the audiologist said might help that looks like a BTE aid but isn't but is cheap! SO...we'll see about that.

But my speech threshold thing is 75 db so if something is quieter than that I'll have a hard time understanding it but my pure tone test is actually pretty good. I just tell people I have a hard time hearing them and if they can't figure that out I don't care anymore. I'm sick of apologizing!

But back to the subject, I measure my loss in decibels not percent.

 

[farmerjoe]

its true its harder to explain to a hearing person who has no awareness of deafness about DB and is easier to explain in percent.. But for myself I use DB cuz I dont know the percent of it..

my DB is 80-129DB

You're right, hearing people don't understand.

My hearing loss isn't easily explained in decibles;

at 250hz it's only about 20db
at 500hz it's about 50db
at 1000hz it's aobout 40
and at 2k, it's 25db
then there's a steep dropoff into nothingness. (100db+)

And that's my good ear. I have no hearing in the other.


99.99% of the people who ask you don't understand decibles and, honestly I think they're just asking for converstaion..

Every time some one asks me how much hearing I've lost, I tell them "about half" it answers their question because they really don't care. I'm thinking maybe I should tell them "about 75%" ?

hmm a few times I've wanted to reply with "quite a bit, how much have you lost?"

 

[serijules]

I have no clue what my decible loss is, and I've been deaf since I was really little LOL.

I don't even really know my percents very well. I really don't care. What does it matter? It's like asking someone "how much do you weigh"? Why on earth would anyone want to know that, or care? *shrugs* Or for that matter, why would I want to tell anyone that, cuz the judgements they would make based on that info will likely be very inaccurate.

Deaf is deaf to me, no matter what level or percentage or decible. I have zero percent speech comprehension without lipreading...ZERO. No matter how well I can "hear" with my hearing aids, I'm still deaf as deaf can be in the ways that really matter...communication wise.

What I struggle with most is how to announce my hearing loss. Do I say I'm hard of hearing, or profoundly hearing impaired...severely hearing impaired...or deaf? I can hear a little with my aids, but like I said, I have zero comprehension without lipreading, so what I "hear" is mostly just cosmetic and doesn't help with communication. If I say I'm deaf, people get stupid and assume I can't talk and only sign (my speech is fine, and I lipread...don't sign at all). If I say I'm hard of hearing or hearing impaired or anything in that family, I get people starting to talk to me really slowly and start shouting, which makes lipreading even harder than normal.