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

Well, yes, but five years of hearing everything you can hear now will definitely be worth it.

I know.....but my finances are at crisis point for reasons too complicated and boring to enumerate. The thought of having to pay out again so soon is not good.


Don't worry...I'll get over myself.

But its making me think it's not so bad I forget to wear the thing reasonably often.

I know about crisis point. I finally had to consider it a necessary job related expense. Now, I'm retired and just don't know if it's worth replacing if they can't fix the thing.

Talk about 'worth its weight in gold'. This exceed the price per ounce by significant multiples.

I'm luckier than you in that if I am poor enough to qualify for a pension when I retire.....which looks increasingly likely after the GFC, and the next bit of that I think is coming....I think I get hearing aids pretty much free. Not sure.

Roger, I really hope you CAN get it fixed or get a new one....it's awful isolating being deaf. Please factor that in if you have any possibility of having one.....or maybe learn to lipread? I've been looking into courses on that.

I haven't been to the UNM hearing clinic myself and I've no idea if they would somehow be helpful re access to hearing aids. But maybe they would be useful.
I figure you are fine with your current person, so I am just mentioning it as a possibility.

Re eyeglasses, my clinic gave me the name of a firm to check and I tried to find it twice in the blasting sun and gave up. I'm fairly swift re direction so I figure it dissolved in space. I found a good deal on my own but will probably never be able to spring for a new pair. And - as you know, I very much like my eye clinic, superb md's.

That is, except if JohnBoy is in the car and you are driving to find where you think Trader Joe's is..
snort.

There are a fair amount of ways to get financial help with hearing aids in the U.S. Roger, I'd be happy to look some stuff up for you if you'd like.

Dlowan, I'd really caution against the lipreading courses. In my experience (as in, not just my own but with the many deaf people I've met) you have the ability to lipread or you don't and instruction doesn't really make a difference one way or another. You can learn some party-trick type stuff but the kind of lipreading that actually makes a difference with communication can't be taught IMO.

I think I remember you saying that you already have a fair amount of lipreading ability, if that is already there it can definitely be honed.

A lot of that is more behavior modification than actual lipreading ability per se, though -- getting other people to talk in a way that makes them easier to understand. (If anyone wants tips there I'm more than willing to share!)

I DO recommend learning ASL (or the local equivalent) for anyone who is concerned about isolation, though. It's a bummer to have your pool of potential contacts shrink so much (to people who also know ASL), but it's also such a relief to be able to communicate effortlessly. I don't think I'd be able to lipread as well as I do if I didn't have the oases of ASL communication.

And definitely never too late to learn. I'm becoming friends now with a doctor who is losing her hearing, she's in her late 60's and just starting to learn ASL, maybe 1 year into it. She's already very good.

You said I must be able to lipread....because of how deaf I was....I have no sense of that at all, and have almost no idea what someone is saying when they whisper, for instance.

This just gets more depressing!

Right, thanks for reminding me... it was that you were able to understand so much even though your hearing was so bad, in really trying circumstances. (Children, especially.)

People speak differently when they whisper. My daughter sometimes speaks to me silently (no voice) when she wants to say something privately to me, and I have to tell her to use her voice so I can understand her -- when I can't hear a thing either way. It's just how she speaks in each situation.

Thanks. I may have to get back to you. It's being sent to the factory right now. I asked how much it would cost if I couldn't pay. Audiologist assured that it would be fixed and totally reconditioned, whatever that means. $450.00, which is almost 20% of what I paid for it, and darn close to the max I would pay for something that wasn't brand new.

Hi all.... I've read back a couple pages and am feeling a little anxious about my big purchase. I just bought one digital hearing aid from Miracle Ear for over $4,000. It's on a 5-year payment plan (it'll be around $6,000 at the end of the plan if I don't pay it off sooner). But, now I read that it may only have a 5-year life span!? Egads!

How are you finding it?


I am sorry to hear you are one of our hard of hearing group.

Is it a super special one?

My god! Isn't that the original "completely in the ear" device? I sure hope you can adapt to wearing it.

Well, dlowan and I discussed, keep it dry and hope for the best. Mine came back from the shop today, and I stopped at hobby lobby and invested in a bag of silica gel to store it in when I wasn't wearing it. If you go that route, remove the battery before storing, and use open cell foam or fabric to separate it from the gel.

I've really been having doubts about the expenditure of $450 for repairs. It was vital when I was working, but I forgot there was a different element to the equation now. Mostly, the people I could hear while wearing it, I could still understand without it. Likewise, placing an order at the drive through at a fast food place is pretty much zero communication both ways unless they luck out and hire someone who knows how to talk.

I haven't gotten it yet. I'll let you know next week (or the week after). I don't know if it's super-special. It's digital and has 4-5 channels (different settings for TV, restaurant, etc), it can be reprogrammed as I need it to be....

Roger - it's not an in-the-ear. It's a behind-the-ear. I have 30 days to return it after I get it.

What they told me, and what I read elsewhere on the web (not at all sure if it was a reputable website) is that you need to use the hearing aid or you will lose your hearing beyond the point where a hearing aid will work.

Mm, that's not really how it works.

The only way I can see that being the case is that the fresher your memory of sound, the more likely you are to be to be able to make use of the sound you hear through the hearing aid.

But failing to wear a hearing aid doesn't actually affect your hearing per se at all.

If anything it's more likely to go the other direction (since your ear will be subject to daily poundings of increased decibels).

What is the specific cause of your hearing loss, do you know?

Meanwhile, re: longevity, I wore mine for about 7 years with no problems, and stopped due to preference rather than anything wrong with the hearing aid. I really think the Dri-Aid (container to help dehumidify it) helped a lot.

Oh good. On other discussions the completely in the ear thing wasn't meeting with real high consumer satisfaction.

What you've heard is true. When I first started wearing mine, I felt like I was under violent, physical assault all day. That was at a very low setting to let me adapt to it. Well, my hearing was pretty far gone when I got it, and I did eventually adapt to it. It probably took longer than it would have if I had started sooner.

Soz, makes sense. I got a lot of info that day and likely misunderstood her.

Roger - still seems an awful lot of money.

It is a lot of money. And like I say, I'm almost in buyer's remorse just on the repair charge.

My audiologist, for what it's worth, said they CAN'T damage your hearing further...the sound assault thing isn't "real", it's due to your brain having become used to abnormally low soundage at the areas where your hearing loss is.

And it sure does seem an an auditory assault at first!!!!!!