One of the first wonderings we all have when we suspect that we have a hearing loss is: do I have to visit an ENT doctor first or can I go directly to the audiologist? Logic tells us we have to go before to the ENT doctor, the audiologist should be always a second step, but is that always the case?

Let's take it step by step.

What does an ENT doctor? And an audiologist?

The main difference between the two is that the ENT is a doctor who heals the ear injuries, while the audiologist corrects alterations related to hearing. The ENT doctor can diagnose hearing loss, and even make audiometries, but not theat it: just as ophthalmologists do not graduate glasses in audiology the ENT doctors end up deriving their patients to the center of audiology if all they need is a hearing aid.

Therefore, if you know or suspect that all you have is hearing loss −in the previous post we reviewed some symptoms, such as no longer good following on conversations or raise the volume of the TV more than normally− and this loss is not accompanied by pain or irritation in the ear, you can go directly to the audiologist to carry on with the necessary test to correct your hearing and to be able to return to your day by day normalcy as soon as possible.

It could be the case that while you do hearing tests, your audiologist detects your hearing problem is associated with an injury that you had not noticed before −as tympanic perforation or something as simple as a wax plug− and derives you to the ENT doctor. But if hearing problems have emerged slowly, so that even cost you a while to realize that hear worse than before, it is likely that the only thing to happen is that your ear is healthy but has been losing hearing.

And now you may be assailing the second big question: do in the audiology center make hearing tests as well as in the ENT doctor? Can I trust the results? The answer is yes, and in many cases, much better. You have to take into account that the reason to be of audiology centers is correcting people hearing loss, and this can only be achieved by very accurate tests, we care about it and so because of this all the infrastructure and tools used are top quality and offer the best results.

So if you hear out there that audiologists are like ENT doctors or that hearing tests are better done in the ENT specialist, it is a good moment to apply that "do not believe everything you hear." There are many legends In the audiology world that we all have to stop them spreading around.