Frustration with my Audiologist

@Um_bongo said:

Unlikely as they have only one functional side.

If you are talking about bimodal user he has hearing in both ears. CI and a hearing aid in the other. How well he hears with each one might because concern but not sure.

According to his chart there’s only one Cochlea doing the listening, however it arrives from the outside. I’m unsure if he has a CI or BAHA though.

OP has good hearing up to 1Khz, bi-lateral, so it makes sense to not to block those frequencies for naturalness and, avoid occlussion. I did test the “deep insert power dome” in the past (what can I say, I am nerd) because I wanted something fully effective in noise and I heard that if the insertion is deep, the occlusion goes away. It did not, I detested the plugged feeling and the artificial sound.

I’m still surprised the OP found the Eargo’s useful because those are open fit more than the Rx and he/she only wore it in one ear but this shows his preference for naturalness

@Um_bongo, I am bimodal literally…! CI in my “no cochlea” ear and Audéo Infinio Sphere 90 in my better ear - temporarily with P with power domes, but I am wait for UP with no vent.

I know that my audiogram isn’t theoretically for UP, but I maxxed my gain over 2 kHz in P and it’s still insufficient. With UP I have better access to more gain in that range, in effect, I can finally understand TV in quiet without intermediary device!

@Bimodal_user said:

I am annoyed, because I ordered this no vent UP cShell especially for the party.

Now I came back to P receiver in Unitron Power domes, which greatly isolate from noise, but lack of some clarity compared to UP receiver, because it has maxxed out gain over 2 kHz… It’s a pity that UP cannot be attached to power domes

@Raudrive, thanks for the advice. However, speech understanding is more important to me, and I live in the city. Since I’ve lived almost my whole life without localization, it isn’t as important to me to spend limited time training it. Maybe in the future!

@OcramSagev said:

I did test the “deep insert power dome” in the past (what can I say, I am nerd) because I wanted something fully effective in noise and I heard that if the insertion is deep, the occlusion goes away. It did not, I detested the plugged feeling and the artificial sound.

Did you change the size of your domes to a smaller ones? I have to change from L to M size, because bony part of ear canal is narrower and more sensitive.

Occlusion can depend a lot on skull anatomy and varies a surprising degree from person to person. Usually once low thresholds deep below 30 I don’t worry about it and some aren’t bothered with even 10 dB thresholds, but you do find the occasional person who really struggles with it even with considerable hearing loss.

@Neville said:

Wut? This doesn’t make sense. I do not think frequency lowering works…how you think it works…

I sat and watched my AuD manually move all the vowels & consonants from the high frequency that I couldn’t hear. He moved them all across into my good low frequencies. By doing this it gave me better clarity and improved my comprehension by about 40%. I don’t understand the technicality of what he did, but it worked.

@Kiwicom said:

I’m in Canada and the audio said that I would not qualify for a CI.

What are your speech recognition scores in quiet and noise (if available)?

I hear tones in the upper frequencies….not many though!

OK sorry for the slow updates. Still struggling with the Phonaks. I had to put the subs back on the TV and I was at a really loud restaurant and I struggled to hear what people said….after an hour my brain gave up and I just nodded and smilled. I have the app and tried switching to “restaurant” but this made no difference. I doubt that “sphere mode” is working.

Hearing scores:

SRT: R=55DB L=30DB

PB: R=68%@80DB L=72%@80DB

I see the audiologist on Monday.

Ask about Sound Recover at your appointment. It’s a technology that is designed for your type of hearing loss. It just might get going your speech understanding going again. If they do turn it on be prepared for strange new sounds. It could take you a week or longer to acclimate.

Thanks. Will try my best:-)

Your audiologist should be objectively verifying frequency lowering technologies using real-ear measurement. They can do this using either built-in ‘s’ and ‘sh’ stimulus or live speech. If they don’t know how to do this, the Purdue Ear Lab provides master guidelines and assistant tools3 to help optimise performance. There’s also a Master Class available through audiologyonline and a bunch of free learning articles linked there also.

Frequency lowering should be being used for both of your ears given your audiogram. It should preferably be used in a symmetrical way to ensure coherence of place cues and binaural integration of the signal: this will give you the best chance of adapting to the modified signal. It takes time to adapt to frequency-lowered signals, longer as an adult. Give yourself 6 months to get maximum performance. It won’t sound natural, but its better to have access to the additional speech information, particularly for speech understanding in noise than to be without it altogether. The only alternative is CI, which you apparently don’t yet qualify for.

I think that this audiologist is lending me the hearing aids to try. I don’t think that they put in that much effort. On theses Phonaks the left hand wire is not attached properly and it cuts out sometimes…..I always feel rushed during my visits. I have not spent much money….maybe they will be better when I lay down the cash.

Given your complex hearing profile you’ll need to pay for the service (and have a good audiologist that follows best practices) to get an optimal outcome.