Hearing Test - need advice

Wow! Looks like I need serious help here, the only two words I recognize are bowels and vowels!
Without resorting to fricatives and exPlosive bursts, is there a readily available lexicon of these terms in context of our situation as HOH, HA wearers and DIYers.?

Regarding the wax. I had an experience with wax a number of years ago. The Ent found a large piece of wax in my ear, but was not able to dislodge it during my visit. He had me use an eardropper with equal parts mineral oil and hygrogen peroxide every night for 2 weeks (letting it bubble for a few moments that letting it drain out) in order to soften it so that it would come out easier. I think the oil is to keep the ear moist and not dry it out. It worked. the Ent had no trouble removing it when I returned.

@IGZO said:

Without resorting to fricatives and exPlosive bursts, is there a readily available lexicon of these terms in context of our situation as HOH, HA wearers and DIYers.?

I really don’t know. I leave that to speech therapists and linguists.

My friend Ann wanted me to report on her progress. She decided to get another hearing test as she hadn’t noticed any issues herself and the audiologist said she needed to have the wax removed from her ears and learn more about hearing loss.

She went ahead and used the Ear Wax MD - specifically the Eosora Wax Blaster MD Wax Cleaning System which uses the Ear Wax MD. The box says it removes ear wax in one dose, in 15 minutes - this was not true in her case. She liked the spray bottle and water catch basin. She thought she could hear better but decided to purchase an Otoscope so that a family member could look in her ears. She repeated the Ear Wax Blaster spaced out a few times over the next few months until her family member could see clearly into her ear. What she learned over time was how often she really needed to do this process. When she went for her second hearing test - she had no issue with ear wax. YMMV with Ear Wax Blaster.

At the second hearing test - the test was better (but also similar), but she was hearing better. The improvement appeared to be in her right ear - the one which needed the most cleaning.

Here are her results - the second test was

When she went for the second test, a different audiologist, they indicated that she was a borderline candidate and should only get hearing aides if she was motivated.

Ann has made an appointment for hearing devices and to test out a pair if possible and may check out Costco. The audiologists - neither of them - really thought she needed hearing devices and that confuses her now based on the information she has read on line and that many have shared above.

Ann thanks everyone for their help and feels more knowledgeable.

If anyone has any further thoughts, I will pass them on. Thank you all for your sharing.

Bimodel_user - Thank you ! Your info and the Dr. Cliff were very informative. This will help Ann as she test hearing devices. Many thanks!

Those two tests are pretty much identical allowing 5dB test re-test variability.

2kHz is a pretty critical frequency for speech. It is common for patients who have normal hearing out to 2kHz to report no functional difficulty, and it is common for these patients to only experience minor benefit for hearing aids. I think a lot of clinicians would make similar recommendations to that second audiologist (and the notes of the first). If, on the other hand, the patient was motivated to optimize their hearing or was reporting functional difficulties, I’d absolutely recommend trying something.

@hearing1 said:

In my experience, doctors of audiology don’t really know about hearing aid technology and fittings. That’s why I rely on Hearing Instrument Specialists (HIS).

Audiologist training with hearing aids is typically equal to or greater than HIS training, so I’m not sure why this would be the case. Experience could be really different though. If I were choosing between an HIS who had fit hearing aids for ten years and an audiologist who had just been doing heavy diagnostics for ten years then I’d bet on the HIS.