Yep. A few months ago I had a professional hearing test done. I took the results to an ENT to look over and he says I need a hearing aid in my left ear. In that ear, I cannot hear anything of a higher frequency than the midrange tones of human speech.
Ouch! $2500!!! Hmm. Hope the insurance will cover that.
And one more thing for accident-prone me to try to avoid breaking.
A friend of mine is 40% deaf, and he has a hearing aid. He just turned 21 a couple of months ago. Another aquaintance also has hearing problems. Hearing is a touchy thing, I’d imagine there are a lot of people out there that have a real problem that aren’t fully aware of it.
CynicalGabe, good luck getting the hearing aid. I hope the insurance doesn’t give you any issue over it. If you don’t mind wearing it, I’m sure you’ll be very pleased to have one.
Did the ENT identify the cause? Is it expected to continue to degrade, or remain stable? I would definitely pursue identifying the cause before investing in a hearing aid, particularly if your hearing is likely to continue to change. It would suck to buy one that’s appropriate today, only to have to replace it in a year because it wasn’t flexible enough. More importantly, if it is degenerating, it may be possible to arrest the progress where it is before you lose any more range.
And don’t worry about the age cracks - I’ve worn hearing aids in both ears since I was four. For the last ten years or so, the hearing aids I’ve worn have been small enough that almost nobody notices them until they’ve spent enough time around me to see me pull one out of my ear. In fact, when I first got the tiny ones, I was baffled - I could hear better than ever, but understood less customers at work. I finally realized that the bigger hearing aids had been visible to strangers, so they usually spoke louder.
I do know that aiding a unilateral loss is controverversial. Some people are all for it, and others say that it really doesn’t make a difference. I myself have a moderate to severe loss and have worn aids since I was three. I have a lot of advice and links for you. First of all…did you get the hearing test done at a real audi’s or just a hearing aid dispenser/Beltone/Miricle Ear type place? Those places are to be avoided like the PLAGUE. They are just interested in selling hearing aids. The people who work at those places are purely salespeople. Second of all, most insurances don’t pay for hearing aids. On a related factor if you DO decide to pursue getting an aid, shop around and experiment with different aids. Yes, digital aids are awesome, but a lot of people are really happy with plain old analogs!!! It really depends on so many things thou.Hearing aid fittings are wicked indivdualistic… you may want to look into something called a Bi-CROS aid…it’s a hearing aid for unilateral cases.Also DO NOT choose an aid purely for cosmetic reasons. A BTE (behind the ear) aid is not THAT noticable. I love how the marketing makes it seem like a BTE is as noticable as a body worn aid or an ear horn. They aren’t THAT noticable! Hey…do a Doper thing and get the colored aids and earmolds that they have for little kids Last of all…there are some good messageboards out there for hoh folks…the best one is my favorite…http://www.alldeaf.com…LOTS of dhh (deaf and hoh) young folks and from all the different spectrums…a handful of late deafened folks who only post about hearing aids or whatever, lots of young dhh folks, some unilaterally dhh folks, folks who Sign, folks who don’t sign, and everything in between! There’s also a lot of great discussion not related to dhh topics. Very well balanced board! There’s also http://www.myhearingloss.org, which is SHHH’s (Self Help for HOH People) messageboard. It’s somewhat useful…can get a lot of info on hearing related matters…There are some other HOH (hearing aid) messageboards…about.com deafness is OK if you like those annoying messageboards where you have to click on every reply to a question…there’s also HOH Advocate’s messageboards…There are tons of messgeboards and the ones I’ve listed are only the start. Just one word of advice…STAY CLEAR of Hearing Exchange. It’s not very active for one, and most of the chats, topics etc are about the coachla implant. Really not the best place in the world to find out info about hearing aids. (I also have friends who’ve had some wicked bad experiances there, but I don’t want to be accused of slander or anything so I’ll keep quiet…DO PM me over all alldeaf, and I will tell you the whole story of the closed minds at Hearing Exchange!)
Had the test done at a real audiology place - Agency for Hearing in Sacramento. Personally, I would expect it to continue to change - in a bad way. I’ve noticed it getting progressively worse over the last few years.
My insurance covers almost all of the cost of hearing aids.
And I’m starting to stutter too. That has me worried.
Fortytwois, there is one non-cosmetic advantage of the in the canal aids. When I first started wearing them, I realized that for the first time, I could tell where sounds were coming from. But they’re not for everyone. The small size limits the distance between the mic and speaker, which in turn, makes them much more prone to feedback at high power.
Your insurance covers hearing aids? You’re lucky. Mine doesn’t, and my aid is going on 10 yrs now and is on it’s last legs. Really should start saving up / look for a deal.
Lucky that your insurance covers aids!!!
Two good brands are Oticon and Phonaks…I wear BTEs, and just got Phonaks last year. They are just analogs, but the difference between them and my Siemens aids are amazing! You really do have to experiment thou. You may want to join this yahoogroup, hearing_aids_are_cool@yahoogroups.com
True, but I mean I thought that you could localize sounds with almost any hearing aid.
I cannot of course, but that is b/c of the nature of my loss. I dunno…I think that the disadvantages of tiny aids outweigh any “advantages” (little to no power, need to be replaced often, small size which translates into easy losing and breakage)