If you have a hearing issue, it could be something wrong in your ear’s ability to conduct sound or your brain’s ability to process impulses or both depending on your specific symptoms.

Your ability to process sound is influenced by several variables such as general health, age, brain function, and genetics. If you have the frustrating experience being able to hear a person’s voice but not processing or understanding what that person is saying you could be dealing with one or more of the following types of loss of hearing.

Conductive Hearing Loss

You could be experiencing conductive hearing loss if you have to continuously swallow and yank on your ears while saying with increasing irritation “There’s something in my ear”. Issues with the middle and outer ear like fluid in the ear, earwax buildup, ear infections, or damage to your eardrum all decrease the ear’s ability to conduct sound to the brain. Depending on the severity of problems going on in your ear, you may be able to make out some people, with louder voices, versus catching partial words from others speaking in normal or lower tones.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Where conductive hearing loss can be brought about by outer- and middle-ear problems, Sensorineural hearing loss affects the inner ear. Sounds to the brain can be stopped if the auditory nerve or the hair like nerves are injured. Sounds can seem too loud or soft and voices can come across too muddy. You’re suffering with high frequency hearing loss, if you have difficulty hearing women and children’s voices or can’t distinguish voices from the background noise.