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

Cool...thank you.

I hope I can get something almost invisible or the kids in the Lands will have it ripped out of my ear in no time flat, unless I can fend them off!

Sure!

If you know your db loss (how many decibels it takes for you to be able to hear something -- I'd expect the number to be in the 30-50 range), I can tell you a bit more about whether it can be almost invisible or not.

My hot tips:

Find out how long you can use it and still return it, if they use that kind of system down there.

Eva is right, the open fit is most comfortable. Those invisible jobbies are especially invisible because most people don't bother to put them in.

Find an audiologist or ENT doc that doesn't mumble (not as easy as it sounds).

Edited to change name.

Many of my hearing troubled friends mummur, often delicately. I suppose I do too, though possibly monotonically - what annoys us with others, we do ourselves.

At this point, none of us shout, thank goodness.

Bookmark.....

yni no aussies invent the best hearing aids

ring the company hon

I assume I'll have to have a hearing test, so I'll tell you when I find out. I haven't had my hearing tested since I was 16 (because they made it clear there was nothing I could do except avoid loud music and stuff like that.)


I think it's pretty bad now because I simply cannot hear unless my mind is on what I am listening to. Work is hard because of all the little kids' voices...and I am driving younger colleagues nuts, like our parents did. We make a joke of it, (and sometimes my mis-interpretations are excruciatingly funny, or the conversations leading from them bewildering to all) but it IS infuriating for people with normal hearing to be with someone like me, who is not obviously deaf. It's a bloody nightmare in Aboriginal communities...partly because in the areas I am working in only the first syllable is accented, and everything else is kind of swallowed, but even worse, when people feel shamed by what they are talking about they speak really softly, and asking them to repeat it is shame-inducing. Time to act with the ears!


Kind of ironic given the avatar, eh?

I am aware that you can take away aids to see how they go for you.

I can still hear most professionals, thank heavens!

I am going to end up a shouter, I just know. I do it when my ears are blocked.

Which company?

Virtually all hearing aids are digital and programmable now. They program them to match your audiogram results for left and right ears. I have no idea how they would program two different aids...I imagine you would need a superqualified audiologist to make that work.

"Open fit" hearing aids hang over the top of your ear. The actual hearing aid is behind the ear and can easily be covered by your hair. There is a tiny clear tube that goes from the aid over the top of your ear and into the ear. On the end of the tube is a very soft, pliable, dome-shaped silicone tip with holes in it. This tip is what anchors the aid. The holes keep it from feeling like your ears are stopped up. I hate that feeling, and I couldn't tolerate it all day long every day.

Here's a picture of someone wearing one:



Pretty close to invisible, and they've pulled her hair back. I've been teaching for 5 years now, since just after I started wearing hearing aids. It still shocks my students when I tell them I have them. They never notice a thing. Neither do other adults. This kind of hearing aid is noticeable on men with short hair, but it's not noticeable on most women at all.

Wow! Thank you...that's very thorough.

I just made an appointment with an audiologist at a place that also recommends the aid they think right for you. They swear they are not connected to any particular manufacturer.

Luckily, I pushed and pushed my Health Cover people because first they told me I had to have an ENT referral then a GP. The wording was "referring practitioner" and I didn't read that as doctor at all. They went off for ages and came back and said an audiologist was the one who needs to refer, as made sense to me in the first place.

Appointment on April Fools' Day...but so it goes.


I wonder how they do with lashings of red dust and numerous bities?

This is kind of exciting.

I know lots of people have lots of problem with background noise and such.

Is that a big issue for any of my fellow deaf here?

Will I really be able to hear stuff and all?

This is probably not applicable to you, deb, but I went to too many very loud rock concerts and spent too many years with very loud headphones on and blew out a fair bit of what I, with an audio background, think of as midrange (which audiologists, thinking of the human voice,think of as high frequency). Unfortunately that means that I have a harder time understanding women, whose voices are higher, than men. Damn.

Got a hearing test a couple years ago, and was told at the time that neither analog nor digital ones would help very much, tho digital ones would cost a lot more. Their advice boiled down essentially to "Learn to read lips". Which wasn't particularly helpful. Maybe the ttunable digital ones that can selectively boost specific parts of specific octaves, rather than a general boost, which they seem to be coming out with now, would supercede that recommendation.
the test was done at a non-commerically related clinic, so they had no vested interest in pushing me toward a particular kind of aid--I keep getting junk mail for companies who run "free" hearing clinics (which will tell you all about their particular miracle product when you're tested)--I'm more than a little leery of them. Does the Oz health plan have anything like a large multi-discipline clinic not affiliated with commercial businesses that you can go to for a test?

I hope that is not true for me~

Mine is inherited slow, well, death, I guess of the auditory nerve.

I have lots of muso friends who are deaf as posts now....and everyone who listens to lots of loud music generally will lose hearing.

I avoided the loud music, thank heavens, as instructed, or I don't think I'd have any hearing at all.

I am sorry it is true for you.

Thanks for the good wishes, and same back to you. Yeah, if the nerve goes, a hearing aid, which basically just boosts the volume of parts of the sonic spectrum may not help, or only help for a couple years. Good luck. I do wonder about cochlear implants, have to do a little research.

deb, if you haven't yet, look up ''cochlear implants' on wikipedia. It sounded promising at first, but then they say it requires a functioning auditory nerve, so it may not work if yours is going bad. But it does say Medicare in Australia covers the procedure, which may cost from 45K-120K USD, so they might cover some other procedure for you. Again, best wishes.

That would be way too dramatic at this stage! And doubt it would, as you, say, help.

I know a fair bit about the implants.

I'm kind of hoping nerve cloning is up and running before I'm dead.

wow, I'll go for that.

Of course you knew that. I should have also assumed you knew there is a limited time, after which you have bought it. Well, maybe that's just around here. I'll try not to interrupt again.

I meant murmur... spelling mishap on top of faulty hearing..

On the other hand, if I gather my wits to ask someone to speak louder, they immediately respond in a semi-shout or full blooded one.

This all brings back faint memories of my grandmother mentioning mumbling. Maybe I'm just imagining that as I cannot remember her talking to me except the time she hoped I could thread a needle for her. I could.