Profound Loss Questions

Many people with profound hearing loss use BTE hearing aids. Each unit has a powerful receiver in the part that goes behind the ear, and sound is carried into the ear canal by a tube that has a dome or a custom mold at the “listening end” to carry sound to your eardrum. Costco doesn’t sell those. Make it plain to whatever audiologist you see that you do not want a CI, that it is a definite “NO!” Tell them you want powerful hearing aids.

And, thank you for your service.

I wear Oticon Exceed 1UP. As you can see from my audiogram, my hearing loss is somewhat worse than yours. Like you, at my age (73), I will not consider a CI.

I truly believe you need a BTE hearing aid, Super or Ultra power. I find that Exceed1UP I wear now have been the best I’ve ever worn.

I’m very active, go to noisy places. I do have problems in some noisy places, but I make do.

Costco’s doesn’t sell BTE hearing aids ?

@JonUrban said:

assume BTE is “Behind the Ear” and the Jabra Enhance Pro 30’s are Behind the Ear units.

We generally distinguish BTEs as hearing aids that use a tube to guide sound into the ear vs RICs which also have a hearing aid body behind the ear but use a wire to empower the “Receiver In (ear) Canal”. BTEs have more space for bigger receivers (the speakers, if you will) to provide stronger power for bigger losses. Oticon xceed and Phonak Naida have been mentioned and have good reputations with those with profound losses. Resound has a new BTE out, I think, and we’ve yet to hear much about it.

As for the VA claim: I did less than 4 years by a few months. You have to have had an acceptable discharge, and a disability which you can point to your service as causing or making worse. Many vets are eligible for healthcare without a disability, but if you have a disability they will pay you money monthly which you are owed for your loss. Ask your local VFW or Am Legion post for help. Every state has a hierarchy of service officers whose job is to help folk like you apply. I visited a VFW VSO at a local VA clinic. He interviewed me, filled out the application, and pointed out what documentation I needed (primarily DD-214 and access to my medical history) to get my claim going. They scheduled a C&P (aka comp & pen, compensation & pension exam) for me. I had a comprehensive hearing exam and told my story. If you served in an mos where hearing loss was an issue, it shouldn’t be a problem. I served from a desk primarily, but several long trips on very loud aircraft and being around flight lines with noise and all without hearing protection started my hearing loss and tinnitus. Most vets don’t get any disability amount for hearing loss unless it is pretty severe. I got zero percent for hearing loss and the classic ten percent for tinnitus. Some vets get more but I don’t hear about that often.

After the c&p it gets reviewed and rated. You’ll start receiving the money (typically) via direct deposit before you find out your claim results. When your claim has been approved you then apply for VA health with a facility in your area and make an appt.

VA hearing typically provides top of the line aids from all the major mfrs. & your care is provided by AuDs. If proximity to a VA facility is an issue, you can request “community care” where authorization is made for you to see a local non-va clinic.

See a VFW or Am Legion post to get started! They want to help you!

WH

Looking at your audiogram I wonder if you have dead zones in that left ear. I mention this because there is no reason to use a power aid on those dead frequencies. If that is the case RIC aids should be fine for your hearing loss. Using a frequency lowering technology could also help.

If you can hear in this profound frequencies power aids could help you. The SP and UP BTE aids.

Do you know if you can indeed hear in that left ear from 1000 hertz up?

@Raudrive, if the left ear isn’t hearing anything, wouldn’t @JonUrban be able to wear a CROS hearing aid system to let him hear, in the right ear, sounds coming from his left? That would nullify the “head shadow” effect.

@JonUrban my hearing is a bit worse than yours is. I found when I got to your stage even with SP hearing aids nothing gave me any sort of clarity of speech. Even with 2-3 weekly visits to my AuD none of the tricks she had helped give any clarity. I found it so frustrating back and forth and nothing was helping

As @Raudrive said don’t go with a cross aid from my understanding of them they don’t keep the nerve stimulated in the worse ear. You could trial UP aid if you wanted to

I got to the stage where I couldn’t use a landline phone, I isolated myself from as much conversation as I could. Going out for a meal in a restaurant was impossible for me. As I couldn’t hear any conversation because of the noisy ambience going on around me. I couldn’t hear anything at conferences. I got so mad having to ask people to repeat themselves all the time, I found normal hearing friends stopped calling by. I couldn’t hear to answer phones at work and got told to retire. As taking Drs messages over a landline at work was imperative, I couldn’t do that, and I also dreaded the fact that I could put patients lives at risk because I missed what the Dr wanted. Retiring was the only option for me. I couldn’t continue to live like this.

I know you said you didn’t want a CI, I didn’t either. I did go for an evaluation, I was a future recipient, but didn’t want a CI. So I sat on the fence for a further 18 months, going to and fro, do I or don’t I, yes or no.. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.. But living like I was, was impossible. I did eventually go ahead and get a CI. It was a life saver for me and the best thing I’ve ever done. My WRS went from 26% to 94% in the following 12 months.

Good luck to you.

Get an appointment at a local VA clinic to apply. They will lead you through the process.

Costco does not sell micros or Criss hearing aids which are for one sided hearing loss, and I’ve heard they do not do as well for serious hearing loss.

Finally, you do not have Behind the Ear (BTE) Hearing Aids as you would expect. You have what is called RIC. These have a behind the ear component with a receiver in the ear canal (RIC) . The BTE are very similar, but work only with ear molds and are usually for serious or profound hearing loss. I don’t know if Jabra makes a BTE version. Some brands do not.

@WhiteHat said:

You have to have had an acceptable discharge, and a disability which you can point to your service as causing or making worse. Many vets are eligible for healthcare without a disability,

If you are eligible for healthcare, you are eligible for VA hearing aids this is much easier and quicker than qualification for a VA disability if you have Tricare, you are in the VA system and it makes the application for hearing aids much easier

I’ve seen 2 sizes of tubing for BTEs: standard and thin. It usually ends in a dome, pending custom molds. Since the molds are customized to your ear, I believe either size could be used at the time the molds are created, as long as it carries the sound adequately. If you already have molds for RIC HAs, they might be usable with tubes on an improvised basis pending new molds. Per info posted by @Hildegard, Phonak Naida BTEs have 2 receivers in each unit, which is why they’re BTE and not RIC aids. Not enough room for 2 receivers in each ear canal. Now that RIC HAs are becoming available with UP receivers, people have the option for RICs with more “ooomph” as long as the ear canal has enough room for a UP.

Unpopular opinion (on this forum)

Find a good audiologist who carries a variety of brands and can help you find the best hearing aid for you and adjust/tweak it as needed. You need an audiologist that is more sophisticated than what Costco can offer.

@Raudrive said:

If a person has hearing a cross is not the way to go. It’s like giving up that ear forever. Keeping the ear active is the best thing to do.

If a person is 100% sure that they will never, ever get a cochlear implant and the ear isn’t providing any benefit, than a CROS is reasonable. An ear can provide non-speech benefits though–balance, environmental awareness.

Yes, the Naida UP has two receivers. This allows a higher MPO and a richer sound overall. I think @kevels55 has noted this as well.