Does anyone know much about hearing aids?

You may need to speak up!

Oh dlowan! Sorry to hear it, but your attitude seems to be so good about it. I've had hearing difficulties since I was a kid (opposite end of the spectrum - deep low voices). I was told I should get a hearing aid, but they are soooo expensive that I never did. Here, health insurance doesn't cover them. And there's a chance a hearing aid wouldn't work for me.

Maybe Sozobe would have some info for you!

Yes, I am hoping people like Soz will know stuff.

You know? I am actually quite scared at the moment - I have spent so much time and effort getting really good at aspects of what I do - I am worried this may stop me from doing it. Oh, well.

Thing is, I found out about it at sixteen, so I have had lots of time to get used to it. Still weird when it begins to bite, though!

Ooh boy! Something I know about!

Actually, I haven't worn a hearing aid for many years now -- about 6. But I have just been researching, since there have been lots of recent improvements in technology. Some links for ya:

http://www.hearingloss.org/html/hearing_aid_publication.html
http://www.hearingloss.org/html/selecting_a_hearing_aid.html
http://www.hearingloss.org/html/rossma02.htm

This is a great newsletter with the most current info -- I did a query on "hearing aids" and this is what I got:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HOH-LD-News/messagesearch?query=hearing%20aids

The good news is that there are a ton of options and I'm sure you'll find something. The bad news is that there are a ton of options and it's a lot to wade through.

Good luck!

Thanks Soz!

Missed the intervening two posts -- yeah, it sucks. Don't hesitate to avail yourself of support groups. Association of Late Deafened Adults in the US is a good one. I have a friend who is deaf (not culturally -- doesn't sign or anything, though I'm working on him ) who just moved here from Australia, so I can ask him what he knows about. I'm not sure what city he is from, though.

May I ask how you found 'em before you stopped wearing 'em, and about your kind of deafness, and about lip-reading and stuff?

I have a friend who works at the same sort of work I do, but with adults. She has the same deafness, but in the low tones. She is far deafer than I, and seems to cope - but one-to-one work with adults is way different from families and little kids.

Thanks Soz! Wow, a disposable hearing aid for 39 bucks a pop!

Yeah, one-to-one is very different from groups, very different from kids.

I was rather passive in getting my first aid -- I was 13, tho. The audiologist just suggested one and we said "OK." I got a new one in college, I think, but by that time knew the audiologist well and trusted her judgement. The process was something like: ENT doc (Ear, Nose and Throat), who had a resident audiologist, who tested my hearing, who thought hearing aids would help. Then tried out a specific aid for a while -- I think both times I tested 3, and chose the one that worked best.

The aid was paid for back then, by Department of Rehabilitation. Now it would be pretty much out of pocket, and prices are soaring. I have a friend who worked for EToys at the beginning, when stock was worth big bucks, and he sold some of his stock (employees all had stock options) and bought a digital aid outright, cash, and raved about it. The research seems somewhat ambiguous about digital vs. analog, though, whether digital is really that much better.

Insurance doesn't cover hearing aids here, though it covers cochlear implants. Rant for another thread.

My hearing loss now is just down in the gutter all the way through -- I think 120 db for highest tones, to 90-100 for low tones. I do not perceive any useful sound in my everyday life -- it's all lipreading. As to HOW I lipread -- -- hard to say. It's not a very rational process. There are certain rules, though, that for example adults are more likely to say expected things in expected sequences than children. i.e., ask an adult, "How are you?" and they are likely to say "I'm fine, and you?" It's very likely that a child will say, "I'm a baby monkey and I live in a tree and I eat coconuts and I pick bugs and I go ooh ooh ooh!" (My child, anyway... )

You are indeed in a difficult field for hearing loss. But it sounds like hearing aids will really help you.

My brother is an audiologist. My husband has tinnitus as well as a generalized hearing loss. My brother reccommended the Widex Senso Diva. It is very expensive, but really does the job. It has positions for voice, music, and telephone. You might want to check into it!

http://www.widex.com.au/

Cool, Phoenix. I went to the site and found it rather annoying, though. (US version anyway -- I lopped off the "au") It's very very sleek but doesn't give information. For example, after about 10 minutes of looking, I haven't found what db loss is helped. The verbiage looks like it's for lower db losses than mine -- 20-60 or so. May well be perfect for Dlowan.

That reminds me that quantifying your hearing loss, Dlowan -- db loss, in what tones, whether it fluctuates -- is the first step. Different hearing aids serve different purposes.

Yikes! VERY expensive is way beyond me.

I need to get a clearer idea about prices, and what my private health will cover.

Time for the audiologist referral, I guess.

Soz - I hope the aid does help! I do not suppose cochlear implant would help nerve deafness, anyway, even if I do become profoundly deaf.

I think I already sort of lip read.

Thing is, everyone can tell if I am unwell or distracted already - because I stop hearing.

Mind you, even as a little kid with near normal hearing, I would not hear people speak to me if I was concentrating.

You can sort of learn lip-reading, though, right?

You can. I did, and it sounds like you are well on your way. (No longer 'hearing" when you are distracted.) I don't believe it can be taught, though -- it is too illogical, instinctual, calling on something primeval that we modern humans don't usually need to use.

I'm also hard of hearing, but with all the horror stories I've heard about hearing aides, I'll stay away from them. To begin with, they are very expensive. Secondly, they require constant adjustment depending on abiant noise. You know what I do? I just cup my hand behind my ears when it's difficult to hear; it's free. c.i.

I never knew that!

Oh and cochlear implants basically replace the whole apparatus -- think Borg -- so type of deafness doesn't matter. (99% of "nerve" deafness is really damage to the hairs in the cochlea cite)

However, I think cochlear implants are one of the most shameless and egregious snowjobs in the history of medicine. As I said earlier, that rant is probably for another thread.

I realized I was relying on lip-reading when I was a teenager. If someone is speaking to me with their back to me, I can almost never understand them. And sometimes i can't even hear them.

Soz, can you give us a little rant about cochlear implants?

littlek, yeah, it's looking more and more like ototoxic antibiotics were what did me in. That and the diuretic my doc gave me to "cure" me. Started seriously researching it a bit ago, got too pissed off -- accepting this sort of thing is much easier if it is mysterious and inevitable rather than dumb and avoidable.