99¢ per month. Save 90%.
99¢ per month. Save 90%.

Letters to the Editor: Feb. 9, 2019

Treasure Coast Newspapers

Hats on for hearing better!

The No.1 cause of hearing loss is noise; the next causes are certain types of drugs (i.e., prescription of over-the-counter) or chemical substances (i.e., smoke, vapors, solvents).

Solutions include hearing aids, cochlear implants or bone-anchored hearing aids, sign language and lip reading. But, there’s another help. 

I was clued in at an event I attended by a gentleman who was almost deaf and wore a hat to help him hear. He offered to lend me his hat while I walked down the row and back, to see for myself. I was amazed! 

Now I wear hats in public. Depending on the environment (noise factor, distractions), hats helps me between 20 percent and 50 percent. The help varies, depending on the brim (ball caps don’t help at all), amount of hearing loss and your concentration. Hats bring in sound and keep noise out. They help you focus on the speaker.

I have no personal interest in the hat industry. I just learned how helpful they can be for hearing loss. I hope this helps.

Cheryl L. Nolte, of Fort Pierce, is president of the Treasure Coast Chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America and director, hearing chair, of the Fort Pierce Lions Club.

Bills go up faster than Social Security 

Interesting. I live in an area with a large retirement population that gets a cost-of-living adjustment in their Social Security payment, and guess what ? Everything goes up — utilities, cable, water bill, etc. By the time everyone does their best to get a piece of the COLA raise, one could be left with less than they had before the raise!

Everything You Need to Know About Social Security: 6-7 p.m. May 18. Hoke Library, 1150 Jack Williams Way, Jensen Beach. Adult. Register: 844-308-7033;

Such a sweet bottom-line world we live in. One cannot live without most of this stuff, so they know they have a large portion of their customer base between a rock and a hard place. 

Elmer C. Meiser Jr., Sebastian