Hearing Care Blog | Chico | North State Audiological Services

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Updates

On March 26th, 2020 | by North State Audiological Services | in Uncategorized

COVID-19 Update and Office Status – March 24, 2020

To all our patients, your families, and friends –

We want you all to know you are in our thoughts and wish you our very best during these unprecedented times.

Your good health is of the utmost concern of ours; it’s why we do what we do!

And because of that, our office is open during our regular business hours of Monday though Thursday, 9:00 am till 5:00 pm with a closure between 12 noon till 1:00 pm for lunch.

At this time, you have every right to leave your home for essential services, which includes healthcare; of which good hearing is a vital component!

Should you just need to drop by for hearing aid cleanings or batteries, please do so as you normally would. If it’s time to schedule your yearly check up, simply give us a call at …

Hearing Difficulties CAN be Overcome But … It’s Not The Widget

On January 20th, 2016 | by North State Audiological Services | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, Hearing Aids

I see it all the time.

A person will make an appointment to come into my practice and they – or a family member – is frustrated and confused. They have suffered from hearing difficulties for years … and gone through just about every stage possible when it comes to trying hearing aids.

First they bought one of those $59 devices from an ad they saw in the back of a magazine … which did not help at all.

Then they bought something off the Internet for a few hundred dollars, which worked about as well as the first item.

After that they tried still more product-based options based on the praises about – and discounted prices on – Product XYZ that they saw in advertisements, with the same disappointing results.

Multiple attempts. Thousands of dollars wasted. Their take on the whole process: “Hearing aids don’t work!” My response …

The Road to Better Hearing:
It Starts With People, And WHY They Care

On July 13th, 2015 | by North State Audiological Services | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, Audiologist

“I want to be able to hear again.”

It’s the reason millions of Americans visit hearing care practices every year. Yet, sadly, most are disappointed with how things turn out. The hearing aids they purchased with their hard-earned money either flat-out don’t work, or the benefit they receive doesn’t live up to their expectations … or the promises of the dispenser’s glitzy advertisements and mailers.

How can this be, when a decade and a half into the 21st Century, four and a half decades after we landed on the moon, and over a 100 years since the Wright brothers first defied Earth’s gravity, we should have the technology to fix hearing difficulties, right?

You might expect the word “Wrong” here, but you’d be, er, wrong.

We DO have the technology to correct almost all hearing difficulties, both in the diagnostics (the “testing”), and in treatment (hearing aid technology).

The …

How Starkey Hearing Foundation is Changing Lives on a World-Wide Scale

On April 15th, 2015 | by North State Audiological Services | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, Hearing Aids, Philanthropy

While every year of our lives is special – priceless, really – I feel that 2015 marks some extra special milestones in the field of hearing health care; locally, nationally, and globally. These are:

In October, North State Audiological Services will celebrate its 20th anniversary! I founded this practice with the goal of bringing the very best hearing care available in the United States to Chico and the surrounding communities. Today, that dream has become reality as my AudigyCertified™ Team and I have changed for the better thousands of lives through better hearing… one day at a time. May 1st is the start of the 88th Annual National Better Hearing Month public awareness campaign. This nation-wide public awareness campaign is intended to help the millions of Americans – and their families – who suffer from hearing difficulties. This year is the beginning of the fourth decade of existence for Starkey …

Hearing Protection for Hunters – Practical and Affordable Solutions for All Types of Hunting

On February 17th, 2015 | by North State Audiological Services | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, Hearing Loss, Hearing Protection

Did you know that the muzzle blast from a rifle or shotgun can be in excess of 140 decibels (dB)? And that this amount of noise is a thousand times louder than 80dB which is considered the level at which noise induced hearing damage occurs?

Exposure to just a single blast can cause permanent hearing loss. When one considers the multitude of shots fired from a dove field or from a duck blind, the effect on unprotected hearing can be devastating.

So what can you do to protect your hearing while at the same time partaking in your annual hunting heritage? The answer is the use of hearing protection devices such as foam or custom-molded ear plugs.

Notice I did not suggest the use of ear muffs. While these can be used while hunting, they tend to be bulky, hot, and highly conspicuous to wary game. Also, I do …

Are SoundVoids^TM a Part of Your Life?

On January 16th, 2015 | by North State Audiological Services | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, Audigy Group, AudigyCertified™, Hearing Difficulties, Hearing Loss

Do any of the the following scenarios apply to you (or a family member, friend, or co-worker)?

Someone is talking to you, but you miss the beginning and/or ending parts of some of the words, which results in the sentence structure not making a lot of sense. You are watching TV or listening to the radio, but the speaker “drops” entire words from his or her sentences. The result is that you find it difficult to impossible to understand what is going on. Conversing “one-on-one” is something that you can do well enough, but the minute any background noise comes into play – such as occurs at restaurants and social gatherings – your comprehension of the discussion nosedives.

If any of this has happened to you or someone you know, you may be experiencing SoundVoids™… a term used by AudigyCertified™ hearing care professionals.

A SoundVoid™ is defined as a …

It’s a New Year … Time to Show Support for That Family Member with Hearing Difficulties

On January 1st, 2015 | by Dr. Chalmers | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, AudigyCertified™, Audiologist, Hearing Aids, Hearing Loss

Happy 2013! And here is wishing you, your families, and friends all the very best in the coming year.

Speaking of the New Year, with it comes an annual influx of common calls to my practice that go something like this:

“My father/mother/uncle/aunt/grandfather/grandmother, etc., seemed to be having difficulty taking part in the conversations at the holiday gatherings. Could it be their hearing and if so what can be done about it? We are concerned that if these communication difficulties are not hearing related, that it could be something more serious.”

First of all I want to say how wonderful it is when I hear from someone like this that they exhibit such concern about a family member that they would be willing to take the initiative and do research such as this. What I and my staff would assure this person – and what I want to convey to …

Loud Toys For Children Can Cause Hearing Loss

Watch Out For “Noisy Toys”

On November 20th, 2014 | by Dr. Chalmers | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, Audiologist, Consequences of Untreated Hearing Loss, Hearing Aids, Hearing Loss

Each holiday season, millions of American parents, grandparents, uncles, nieces, other relatives, and family friends shop for and purchase toys for youngsters.

Yet while the toys are supposed to bring happy times and smiles to the faces of the children, many are designed by the manufacturer to be loud… and that is not a good thing. In fact some are so loud that they can cause permanent hearing damage after only a few minutes of exposure to a child.

How Loud Can Toys Really Be?

Just how loud can some children’s toys be? According to the Sight & Hearing Association – a nonprofit organization founded in 1939 with the goal of preventing needless loss of vision and hearing – there are a number of toys on the market that emit sound in excess of 90 decibels (dB) with some approaching 120 dB. For comparison, a chainsaw operates at 110dB! …

Can Your Brain Remember What It Did Not Hear?

On November 7th, 2014 | by North State Audiological Services | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, Hearing Difficulties, Hearing Loss

I’m sure you are familiar with this ages old debate: “If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it fall, did it make a sound?”

If sound was defined as only what we hear, then there would be no debate; the answer would be “no”.

However, “sound” is not just what we hear. Sound is vibrations traveling through space, And those vibrations are caused by waves from some sort of action or force. So the tree itself – while standing upright and still in the forest – does not make sound. But when it falls, its movement and impact with the ground does indeed make a sound; lots of sound in fact!

Now what in the world does this have to with hearing difficulties, brain function, and the title of this article “Can your brain remember what it did not hear? Plenty, because …

Earwax – It Deserves a Better Reputation!

On June 26th, 2014 | by Dr. Chalmers | in Ask Dr. Chalmers, Audiologist, Hearing Aids, Hearing Difficulties

Though its medical name is cerumen, most of us refer to it as “Earwax”.

While I agree that neither term sounds very attractive, I will argue that earwax has gotten an undeserved bad reputation as something equivalent to dirt that we need to remove from our bodies.

So before reaching for the cotton swabs, you should know that earwax performs several important functions for our ears and hearing system.

That’s right. Earwax – unless it is in excess and blocking our ear canal(s) or has plugged and disrupted the proper functioning of hearing technology – is a good thing.

Here are some positive functions of earwax:

● It provides a protective barrier to the skin of the ear canal

● Assists in lubricating and cleaning the outer portion of the ear canal.

● Provides protection against insects (it is a natural insecticide), fungi, and bacteria – all of which …

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COVID-19 Update and Office Status – March 24, 2020

Do any of the the following scenarios apply to you (or a family member, friend, or co-worker)?