What to look for...and avoid...in a hearing aid.

I havent had my ears checked. My right ear is ok , but my left ear is where the blast did its work. I cant even hear a watch ticking with that ear.
I need to go get em checked out. They cant repair ear drums can they?

Deb, when you say cacophany, I remember a friend who got two aids and took em out because he said the background noise drove him nuts

If you do get hearing aids, don't do what your friend did.

You simply have to take time to adjust to the new levels of noise.

Some background noises remain annoying to me, but you're nuts if you don't persist through the early dramas.

Soz may know about ear drums..

Yeah. When all else fails, remember what they cost.

I do know people who have done that with the completely in the canal models. No volumn control, and it probably takes a contortionist with forceps to dig one out.

They can totally repair eardrums. Sozlet had a scare, a situation that could have gotten worse but instead got markedly better (as far as I know she's basically fine now, knock on wood). At any rate when we didn't know which direction things would go, I asked the ENT about the worst-case scenario. He said they'd just slice out her eardrum and put in a new one. I doubt it would actually be as straightforward as he made it sound, but he definitely seemed to be indicating it was doable.

That's if there's excessive scarring or if it is permanently torn, that kind of thing. With a blast, the damage probably wasn't solely to the ear drum.

Anyway, go ahead and get your ears checked, see what happens.

I have the hearing aids. I had her turn them down a little on the high ends (in both the conversational and background noise settings). I will not wear them to school tomorrow, but wait until Monday to attempt them at school. I'll try to get used to them at home and around town first.

So far, I haven't had any conversations with anyone except for the woman at the Miracle Ear store. I can hear more road noise when I drive, my hair makes noise against the pick-up mic when I move my head, and my keyboard may need to be replaced (loud!). Non of this is beneficial to me. I hope that hearing other people improves enough to balance out the stuff I am hearing, but don't want to be.

Thaaaanks. When I last had my ars checked it was at Walter Reed and they just pushed us all through. They said that living with it wouldnt be hard but Id have some loss (NO shot). Its gotten worse over the years and the ringing has gotten almost unbearable when Im very cold.

Amazing how quiet your car isn't, isn't it?

Keyboards drove me nuts at first....but have settled. I realized I had the noisiest car in the world....doors opening drove me nuts...paper moving, all those things should settle.

Fman - get your ears checked!

What does he want checked ears for? He may prefer spots!?

Haha!

Ok. Day two of the hearing aids. I'm a little frustrated. I had dinner with 3 women and 1 man tonight. The man is someone I know I have trouble hearing. One person remarked that my hearing was worse with the aids in. I have issues with my purchase. More after I practice further with aids ....

Sounds to me like the guy mumbles. I've long maintained that if more people enter speech therapy, fewer people would buy hearing aids. Your hearing is not worse. His speech is not better.

Don't get in the habit of telling people you're wearing them. I had mine at work for a week before anyone noticed.

I hope it improves.

Things that are louder that don't need to be: keyboard, my own hair, clipping my nails, walking in flip-flops.

Things that are still too quiet: super low tones (frequency and volume together).

Things that confuse me:
How do I know which setting my aids are on? I have two settings.
Where do I sit for best usage when in a group with and without background noise?


Things that annoy me: itchy ears, chaffing in canal, slides out of canal especially when talking or eating, "kick-stand" tubing doesn't work.

Don't your aids "talk" to each other abut settings?

When you have your tune up visit....can you have the low tones turned up? I had my high tones turned up when I had mine re-tuned.

The falling out of the ear canal thing I have never experienced...do they have alternate plastic bits, or do you need to put them in further.

Itching and chafing ...yes!

Your hair is long and close to mic.

This happened to me too -- it is part of why I eventually stopped wearing hearing aids. It has to do with the different modalities -- speechreading/ context-gathering (within a framework you're very comfortable with, the sound levels you're used to) vs the weird, unpredictable noises from the hearing aid.

That definitely improves with time. (The noises from the hearing aid become more predictable and more associated with useful information.)

At the beginning, especially if you usually do a lot of speechreading, it's pretty disruptive.

For me, it got much better for a stretch (I understood far more with hearing aids than without) but eventually my hearing was bad enough that there wasn't enough useful info coming through, and the speechreading mode offered more info.

Dlowan - my aids don't talk to each other that I know of. I am planning to ask for the low tones to be turned up. And I may have them turn up the high tones which I'd asked to be turned down. I hear Dasha and Sasha worse with the aids in, but I heard Jeremy better (a little) with the in as well.

Mine has three settings, but same principle. A single push of the button, if you have one, advances from one program to the next in sequence. When it moves from #1 to #2, I get two beeps. From #2 to #3 is three beeps. If your brand doesn't do this, I suppose you can switch and learn to tell which is which.



Tough call. One program I have is called "Restaurant". Same general level of amplification as program #1, but the amplification curve is lowered at the high frequency end, and it only uses the forward facing microphone. This suggests the rear of the group would be better with background noise, and possibly without. On the other hand, it is always best if you are facing the group, whenever possible.

What the heck; I'm just guessing based on my own brand of aid and my own observations. Yours will be several generations newer, and a completely different brand. I should probably just go say something mean on a political thread.

Surely, you have more than two settings. They just haven't programed them in yet.