13 Peter had his hearing tested twice, and twice been told it was normal. Both times he left with the same quiet frustration - if everything is fine, why is a busy café such hard work, and why won’t the ringing settle? The test that stops at 8,000 Hz When he came to us, we tested a little further up the scale. And there it was. Here’s something most people are never told: a standard hearing test measures pitches up to 8,000 Hz. Human hearing goes considerably higher. Everything above that line simply isn’t part of the usual test. It’s a bit like an eye chart where you only ever read the top few lines. Nothing about the test is wrong. It just doesn’t go all the way down the page. Those higher pitches matter, because they are often where change shows up first - after years of noise exposure, after certain medications, or simply with time. Research has found that people with a perfectly normal audiogram but poorer hearing in this extended range have measurably more difficulty following speech when there is background noise. It can be the missing link between how someone feels and what their test shows. We should be honest about one thing, though. Hearing in these very high frequencies declines naturally as we age, and past 40 a raised result is often simply age-typical. Finding a change up there does not mean something was missed. What it gives us is a fuller picture - and sometimes a genuinely reassuring one. “This is what we would expect, and here is why the café is hard for you” is an answer too. It is a far better place to start than “everything’s normal.” Because we are independent, nobody outside this clinic decides which tests we run, or how long we spend with you. That is exactly why we can keep looking when a result does not match what someone is living with. If you have been told your hearing is fine but you know something isn’t, it is worth a longer conversation. Book online or call 07 5619 3007 - no pressure, just a clearer picture.
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