Preparing for a hearing test is straightforward, but a few simple steps can make the difference between accurate results and a test that needs to be repeated. Most first appointments take about an hour, and knowing what to expect beforehand helps the process go smoothly.
Avoid Loud Noise Beforehand
The single most important thing you can do before a hearing test is give your ears a rest. Exposure to loud sound, whether from a concert, power tools, or a noisy workplace, temporarily shifts your hearing thresholds and can make your results look worse than your actual baseline. OSHA requires at least 14 hours of quiet before a workplace baseline hearing test, and the same principle applies to any audiogram. If your test is in the morning, that means avoiding loud environments the entire evening and night before.
“Loud” doesn’t just mean obvious sources like concerts or construction sites. Mowing the lawn, using a leaf blower, attending a sporting event, or even listening to music at high volume through headphones all count. If you can’t completely avoid noise exposure (say, you work in a factory), wearing hearing protection during that time is a reasonable substitute. But quiet is better.
Don’t Clean Your Ears With Cotton Swabs
It’s tempting to clean your ears before a hearing exam, but sticking a cotton swab into your ear canal is one of the worst things you can do. Rather than removing earwax, cotton swabs push it deeper and compact it against the eardrum. This blocks sound from reaching the inner ear and can directly affect your test results.
A certain amount of earwax is normal and won’t interfere with testing. If you have excessive buildup, your audiologist will check your ears before the test begins and can remove it professionally or refer you for removal. If you suspect a blockage, mention it when you book your appointment. Some clinics recommend using over-the-counter ear drops for a few days beforehand to soften the wax, but ask first rather than experimenting on your own the night before.
Make a List of Your Medications
Certain medications can affect hearing, and your audiologist needs to know what you’re taking. Drugs that are known to impact hearing include high-dose aspirin, some antibiotics (particularly when taken long-term or at high doses), certain chemotherapy drugs, and loop diuretics used for heart failure or kidney disease. These medications can cause hearing loss, tinnitus, or both.
You don’t need to stop any medication before a hearing test. The point is simply to give your audiologist context for interpreting your results. Bring a complete list of everything you take, including over-the-counter pain relievers and supplements. If a medication is contributing to hearing changes, that’s something your audiologist and prescribing doctor can evaluate together.
Track Your Symptoms Before the Appointment
Your audiologist will ask you questions about your hearing difficulties, and specific answers are far more useful than vague ones. In the days leading up to your appointment, pay attention to the situations where you struggle most. Common patterns worth noting include:
- Trouble hearing in noisy places like restaurants, parties, or busy streets
- Difficulty following conversations when more than one person is talking
- Turning up the TV or phone volume higher than others prefer
- Asking people to repeat themselves frequently
- Ringing, buzzing, or humming in one or both ears
- Ear pain or a feeling of fullness in either ear
Note whether your symptoms affect one ear or both, whether they came on suddenly or gradually, and roughly how long you’ve been noticing them. Ask a family member or close friend for their observations too. People around you often notice hearing changes before you do, and their perspective gives the audiologist a fuller picture.
Bring Your Medical History
Beyond medications, your audiologist will want to know about any history of ear infections, ear surgeries, head injuries, or prolonged noise exposure from work or hobbies. A family history of hearing loss is also relevant, since genetics play a significant role. If you’ve had a previous hearing test, bring the results or have them sent ahead of time so the audiologist can compare.
What Happens During the Test
Knowing what to expect removes the guesswork and helps you respond accurately during each part of the evaluation. A standard diagnostic hearing test includes several components, none of which are painful.
The audiologist will first look inside your ear canals with a lighted scope to check for wax buildup or any visible problems. Then they’ll likely do tympanometry, where a small probe is placed in your ear canal and changes the air pressure slightly. This measures how well your eardrum moves and checks middle ear function. You don’t need to do anything during this part; just sit still.
The core of the test is pure tone audiometry. You’ll sit in a soundproof booth wearing headphones, and the audiologist will play tones at different pitches and volumes. Your job is to respond (usually by pressing a button or raising your hand) every time you hear a sound, even if it’s extremely faint. The test maps out the quietest sounds you can detect across a range of frequencies. You may also wear a headband that sends vibrations through the bone behind your ear to test whether sound is reaching your inner ear directly.
Word recognition testing comes next. You’ll listen to a series of words spoken at a comfortable volume and repeat them back. This measures how clearly you understand speech, not just whether you detect sound. Some clinics also test word recognition with background noise playing, since difficulty hearing in noisy environments is one of the most common complaints.
For young children, audiologists use modified versions of these tests. Infants and toddlers between about 6 months and 3 years are tested with visual reinforcement audiometry, where they’re trained to turn toward a sound and rewarded with a visual display. Children ages 2 to 3 may do conditioned play audiometry, performing a simple task like dropping a block in a bucket each time they hear a tone.
How to Read Your Results
Your audiologist will explain your results immediately after testing, but it helps to understand the basic framework. Hearing ability is measured in decibels (dB), and the classification system used by most audiologists breaks down like this:
- Normal: -10 to 15 dB
- Slight loss: 16 to 25 dB
- Mild loss: 26 to 40 dB
- Moderate loss: 41 to 55 dB
- Moderately severe loss: 56 to 70 dB
- Severe loss: 71 to 90 dB
- Profound loss: 91+ dB
These numbers represent the softest sound you can hear at each tested frequency. A higher number means you need more volume to detect a sound, which indicates greater hearing loss. Your results are plotted on a chart called an audiogram, with pitch (frequency) on one axis and volume (decibels) on the other. Each ear gets its own line, so you can see whether your hearing loss is symmetrical or worse on one side.
The pattern of your results matters as much as the overall numbers. Hearing loss concentrated in high frequencies, for example, suggests noise-related damage or age-related changes, while loss across all frequencies may point to a different cause. Your audiologist will walk you through what your specific pattern means and whether any follow-up testing or treatment is recommended.
Day-of Tips
Arrive a few minutes early to fill out intake paperwork. Skip the earbuds on your commute to the appointment. If you’re congested from a cold or allergies, consider rescheduling, since fluid in the middle ear can temporarily affect results and won’t reflect your typical hearing. Wear a button-down shirt or something that won’t interfere with headphone placement. And if you have questions about your hearing that you’re worried you’ll forget, write them down and bring the list.