The ‘SEAL Team’ actress, who reveals to PEOPLE that she recently began wearing hearing aids, says when she sought help in the past, she was told “come back when it’s worse…when you’re 75″
Every morning, SEAL Team star Toni Trucks puts in her hearing aids — new norm despite suffering mild hearing loss since she was a child.
The 43-year-old actress recently spoke to PEOPLE about her hearing being dismissed over the years and why she’s now feeling “empowered” to be proactive about her health.
Trucks was in kindergarten when she began continuously failing her routine hearing tests. She believes her hearing loss was likely the result of a common ear infection at a young age. Despite the results, doctors often brushed it off as nothing to worry about year after year.
“While the mild loss that I have was always acknowledged, the steps for treating it were always discouraged,” she tells PEOPLE. “You get the results and then it’s just kind of ignored.”
“I was experiencing the running theme of a ‘shrug your shoulders’ attitude like, ‘Oh, yeah you have hearing loss but come back to us when it’s worse. Come back to us when you’re 75.’ I sort of got put on this shelf,” she says.
It wasn’t until a year ago, while helping her father with prescription hearing aids, that Trucks was first told that treating her mild hearing loss was a possibility.
“I was talking with the hearing specialist and she said, ‘Hey, did you know that you read lips a little bit.’ And I’d never ever heard this before,” she recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, I know I have loss. That’s probably why I might be doing that a little.’ And she’s like, ‘Let’s check it out.’ And the road started from there.”
Calling herself a “detective” when it comes to her health, Trucks also decided to take matters into her own hands — researching and reading studies on hearing health and how it goes hand-in-hand with brain health.
“When I started to see the updated science and studies telling me that untreated hearing loss has immediate cognitive consequences, I felt a bit more empowered,” she boasts. “I felt like I could do something to treat my hearing and to treat my brain and the longevity of my life.”
Trucks now wears hearing aids regularly and she’s always “armed with ear plugs in a pinch” if she’s in a louder environment. She also tries to keep her ears healthy and lubricated with oil. The actress says she’s now become the person who educates all her friends and family.
“When I realized that hearing health equals brain health, I was completely sold on taking care of my ears,” she adds. “You can have your hearing tested yearly along with your eyes and your teeth, like any other thing that we’re taking care of all the time.”
Trucks says she knows some people are reluctant to use hearing aids — but, she says, the devices are more sophisticated these days.
“People clench up when they think about hearing aids in a way they don’t when they think about glasses or braces. A lot of people think of their grandma’s hearing aids, where they’re fumbling with a tiny battery and there’s annoying buzzing and ringing,” she says. “For some reason, hearing’s got a bad press agent. These are not your grandpa’s hearing aids. The world has changed.”
With the seventh and final season of SEAL Team premiering August 11 on Paramount+ — which Trucks admits is “bittersweet” — the actress says it’s “both thrilling and terrifying” to look forward to own her next chapter. And part of that includes advocacy work.
Trucks tells PEOPLE that helping others has felt “so empowering” that she’s decided to work with a hearing specialist to create a hearing health advocacy organization.
She says the goal will be to focus on awareness, prevention and protection.
“I think our dream scenario is to update recommended guidelines around hearing health. And moreover, to really try to change the stigma that comes around hearing health and hearing devices,” she shares. “You wouldn’t believe how many people I share my journey with and they’re like, ‘I know I have a hearing problem, but I’ll deal with it in 10 years or something.’ But the unfortunate part is by the time your loved one is saying the TV’s up too loud or you keep saying ‘what,’ there’s probably profound loss that you can’t get back.”
“So mild loss actually can be reversed to some degree and it’s exciting to know that you can take care of that,” she adds.
