If you don’t hear as well as you used to, you could be the last to know. Quite likely it’ll be your family or friends who notice first. They may complain about having to repeat themselves often, or that your TV is too loud.
Unfortunately, such comments are often ignored. People tend to wait an astonishing 10 years before they get their hearing tested. They’re far more likely to get almost anything else checked out; for some reason, they just don’t take their hearing as seriously as, say, their eyesight. Perhaps they think hearing loss is associated with old age, and they don’t want to feel old.