Does anyone know much about hearing aids?

What the f is the FDA for if not to prevent this type of thing? grrrr

Goodness me Soz! I know exactly your thinking on it, though - like, you do not want to make it the core of your life. But still - if the effects were KNOWN at the time... if not, well, sometimes **** happens, no?

WHAT?

Fer sure.

Effects were known.

Coulda been poor communication between various doctors -- I had a zillion ear infections when I was a kid, had antibiotics tossed at me left and right, but maybe each doctor didn't know how much antibiotics I'd already had, in aggregate.

<shrugs>

At any rate, I found the piece by Larry Sivertson that I was looking for:

Oh, I missed your request for a little rant on CIs, littlek. Now how can I turn THAT down? [Bats eyelashes]

They are very expensive. They have a mighty marketing machine behind them. They don't work.

That's the super-short version.

They do, occasionally, work. But they very very very often don't work. I've likened them in the past to fad diets. There really are people who lose 200 pounds on the fabulous Hollywood Liquid Diet, but the fact that there really are some does not mean that most or even a significant number are actually helped. I'm continuously shocked by the uncritical acceptance of their worth.

I know, personally, maybe 100 people who have had CIs. One woman became deaf late in life, perfect candidate, got one, thought she would become hearing again -- nuh-uh. Became a recluse for a year, her first outing was to my office to talk to me. Incredibly depressed. Suicidal.

One of my staff members had one implanted as a child, tons of therapy, etc., a "success", still had significant cognitive delays, still took the damn thing off (outside part) when she came of age.

I have not met a single person who has said "I am so happy I got a CI!" The best has been "It's kinda interesting. I'm still learning how to use it." And maybe 2 people went that far. One of them that I am thinking of I heard has since become more negative -- bad headaches.

Basically, it's not like glasses, something that you just put on and whoosh you're better. In kids, it requires intensive, time-consuming, boring therapy to train their brains to make sense of the signals. And THEN it still doesn't work, often.

Contrast that with teaching those kids, in a fully accessible language -- ASL. They do not have the cognitive delays, and are able to learn a second language -- English -- more easily. In theory, kids could get their CI training and learn in ASL simultaneously, but that's not what happens. The parents worry that ASL is "too easy", that the kids won't want to go through the boring CI training. (Duh!) Again, remember that the end result is far from guaranteed. Even with all that training, may be useless. And those years wasted.

The other important part of this is that the best chance is if they are implanted early. That means it is entirely the parents' choice, not the child's. And since 90% of deaf kids have hearing parents, the minute chance that their child could become "hearing" is incredibly seductive. And the CI industry plays on that at every opportunity.

Makes me furious.

Thanks for all the info Soz - that is awful, given the effects were known.

hey - I had lots of antibiotics as a kid - they were common, and I also had asthma, so got lots of chest infections.

Thanks Soz! It's got a lot going against it, that technology.


I also had antibiotics, though I'm not sure I had more than my siblings. I think I also had a couple of bad ear infections that were untreated for a while before I said anything to anyone about them. My threshhold for pain was pretty high after a while.

I have just had four lots of 'em! I have no idea if they were the type bad for hearing, though - but my hearing is way worse than before I got sick. My ears are still a little blocked, and I guess the perforated eardrum is still growing back, though. Sigh.

Um, I first noticed tinnitus when I was studying for my boards, in 1986, so, eek, 17 years ago. I did call an ENT fellow recently, who sent me to an audiologist, and yep, hearing loss, not a surprise. I have forgotten what he said about the exact amount of loss, but remember that I could do with hearing aids. Which I know, as I say what? way too much. This topic has made me decide to get a copy of my tests.

Depends on the voice. When I drove down to and back from Sacramento with one of our artists I never had to say what, even with driving noise. Ah but she has a nice smooth car, a new volvo, and a good sturdy voice. I haven't been able to hear some of my more delicate speaking friends easily in a while, the ones that use the soft part of their voice and talk like well bred ladies. Huh? what? Forget it if they are in another room, or just have their backs to me. I can usually hear men all right.

It hurts a little bit in my work since the clients tend to talk more directly to my business partner, who is more aggressive anyway, faster thinking, and faster in walking through space. I am not exactly halt, but cautious on steps, and bounding around in the field, what with various visual whohas, like diminished peripheral vision. I tend to glide in last, or second to the last, let others go first in dim light. This isn't all so marked to others, but I certainly notice it.

So when the client and my partner are chatting away, with some clients she can hear them better and I wait til that flow passes. It all works out in the end since I do have some design savvy, and am more free by this situation to figure out good answers which are sometimes different than immediate ones.

Anyway, I can't afford the hearing aids, no matter the price, right now anyway.

We did have a funny scene when I was in NY city recently (I know, that cost money, and I'm Not sorry I went) and met some online friends for lunch. We all three have some hearing problem, and the restaurant, which had been picked for its usually being quiet, took that day to be loud when we first got there. So we ended up writing notes across a small table and laughing, really, it broke the ice.

Soon enough other people left and we had the room to ourselves and our laughs.

i feel for you deb. i've noticed over the past two years or so that i can barely, or not hear at all, normal conversations where there is background noise, band, music, bad karaoke etc....it seems to be getting worse as time goes on. been resorting to just nodding in the affirmative whenever i can't hear the conversations. i hope nobody's asking for money

Hard to pin causes down. I had years of working with organic solvents. Umm. toluene ears.... or maybe not. Maybe it was being in the front row at the Gabor Szabo jazz concert.

but in my case, it wasn't ear infections, which I have heard have been a terrible problem for children's ears. What about through history? What did people do about them before antibiotics and was deafness an immediate result, or was there a plunge with the antibiotics?

I had training as a microbiologist and am not wholly against antibiotics, just against overuse, and way overuse. Have no knowledge/opinion how that relates to ear infections.

Ossobuco- The reason that you heardsome people's voices better and others has to do with the pitch of their voices. When you have tinnitus, the problem is usually in a particular narrow range (in addition to any generalized hearing loss that you might have). For instance, my hubby has the tinnitus in the range where he cannot perceive sibilants well. The hissing sound that he hears is in the same frequency range as the sibilants ("s") sound, which makes voices sound dull, and rather untelligible. His hearing aid is programmed to be boosted in those frequencies, higher than the tinnitus, so he is able to hear the sounds.

Many rock concert afficionados and older rock stars themselves have found themselves with hearing deficits in the higher frequencies. Loud noises WILL eventually destroy hearing in the upper registers.

My husband traces his tinnitus to a time when he was in the army shooting range, before they wore ear protection. He had forgotten to stuff cotten in his ears. He tell that after he shot, he could hear "organ music" in his head for weeks. The nerve damage does not show itself at once, but years later, he started to hear hissing sounds in his head, which soon became a permanent part of his life.

If you take too much aspirin, and certain other drugs, you can develop temporary tinnitus. Some cancer drugs, especially cisplatin, are ototoxic, and can cause hearing loss.

Found a good website which lists ototoxic drugs:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mshlafer/ototox2.html

Thanks, Phoenix.

There is another reason, Phoenix. Some people mumble. If your hearing is good, you hardly notice, but just wait till it starts to go.

Rog- Right.

When I first moved to Florida, it took me a long time to become comfortable with understanding the varying accents of the people who live in my town. (They are from EVERYWHERE!). The local accent is particularly difficult to understand, and it probably would be harder for someone with less than perfect hearing!

[size=7]Low talkers! Oh God no![/size]

LOL.

I'M a low talker. When the hearing was doing the upsy-downsy dance, I would speak at inappropriate levels a lot -- way too loudly in a quiet restaurant that I thought was loud, etc. Since the damage tended to be less when I spoke too quietly than when I spoke too loudly -- people leaning in and saying "what" vs. declaring to an entire roomful of people what happened at the end of my date -- my default mode became quiet. Hard for me to get out of it, though I can when I concentrate.

Somewhere along the way it started to help with enunciation, too. Most of the time people don't realize there's anything off with my voice -- they think it's an accent -- but my voice gets... blurrier... when I speak more loudly, and stays more precise when I'm quiet. That can also be addressed, usually, when I focus -- put me behind a podium and I'm fine -- but in terms of everyday communication, I err on the side of low talkin'.

"low talkers" Made me think of the Bob & Ray routine "Slow Talkers of America", but back to hearing aids.
dlowan, I think you'll be fine with whatever aids you choose. Check out different types, in the ear moulds, outside the ear, some are in eyeglass earpieces. I know several people who have had different degrees of success with their hearing aids. A willingness to work with the doctor, and patience getting used to the mechanics of use had happy results.