I have been told many times that single sided deafness isn’t a big deal. People will say to me that since I have one good ear, it’s fine. I have also heard from others with single sided deafness that doctors have told them hearing with one ear isn’t a big deal. Single sided hearing loss often seems to be dismissed or minimized.

While I know that some people don’t find single sided hearing loss very impactful, that is just not true of every experience. I have personally found it to make a dramatic difference in my life. My hearing loss changed many things in my life, from choices I make in how I socialize to my level of fatigue at the end of the day.

Everyone is aware that having two functional eyes is important. We understand how visual depth perception relies on two eyes working together. Ears are similarly built to be a two part system. With just one functional ear, the ability to pick out sounds and have real depth of sound is lost. Instead of knowing someone is talking to me by the sound becoming more bright and crisp as they face me, I find the conversation blurs with background noises.

Also, single sided deafness creates a deaf cone or head shadow where sound can be blocked by my head and not get to the functional ear. This deaf cone can result in missing a lot of important auditory information, such as someone walking up to my deaf side. I have even experienced times where I had no idea someone even spoke to me because they were in the deaf cone.

There are times and places where my one sided hearing loss is not very challenging. For example, in a quiet and well lit room with only one other person talking, I typically can understand everything easily. However, much of my life does not seem to come with optimal hearing conditions. I wanted to share my list of challenging places to hear.

Situations that are hard to hear due to background noise

• Restaurants and bars
• Big family gatherings like birthday parties
• Conventions and conferences (especially the meals or networking times)
• Schools (especially the cafeteria, hallway, and bus)
• Airports
• Cooking
• Many workplaces (including mine)
• Sporting events
• Exercise classes

Sitiations where the head shadow or deaf cone makes it hard to hear

• Walking or hiking
• Driving in cars
• Traffic (hearing a car coming in a parking lot or street crossing)
• Bicycling
• Non-optimal seating at tables (especially round tables)
• Whispering (my conversational partner seems to choose my deaf ear more than 50% of the time 😆)

Other hard to hear situations for single sided deafness

• Places with high ceilings and hard surfaces where sound echoes
• Situations with physical barriers to sound like plexiglass walls
• Situations where the person speaking does not have their mouth visible ( such as wearing a mask)