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I’m having a problem with my left hearing aid. It appears that when a high pitched sound is picked up, there is a scratchiness surrounding the sound. As an example.
If I am stirring a cup of coffee, and the spoon hits the side of the cup, I can hear the tingle the spoon makes, but around that tingle is a scratchiness around the sound.
The beeps on the microwave also produces the scratchiness. Other than that, the only other times I can hear the scratchiness is if I am watching a live broadcast of the news on tv, sometimes, depending on the pitch of some voices, will come the scratchiness.
Now during everyday conversations, there is no scratchiness. My voice is clear, no scratchiness, the person I am talking to, no scratchiness. Everything else is clear.
So anyway, I paid my audi a visit, she looked at my , and felt like the might have been set too high. So she lowered it. At first I felt she lowered it too much, because I felt everything I was hearing was too soft. So she put it back to the way it was, and then re-adjusted the MPO setting again. This time it was a lot better.
When I got home the scratchiness I was hearing during the day has diminished quite a bit. There still seems to be a little, but all in all a lot better.
As long as this noise will not damage the hearing aid, I’m thinking about letting it
be. I hear so well on all other levels, I do not want to interfere with that, just because I want to watch the news for a few hours every night.
Something that I noticed, maybe it’s just my imagination, but it seems like sounds are louder now, than before the adjustment. I actually turned down the volume on the tv.
Is this because she cleared up a lot of the scratchiness, that sounds are coming thru clearer ?
If I leave the setting alone,will the scratchiness damage
the hearing aid in any way ?
Thank you in advanced for all your help.
Laura

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I suppose the cause for the scratches you describe are related to “whistle block” or “sound smoothing”. Either you reduce effectiveness of those parameters or you reduce . I prevere the latter as you did.
On the other hand when reducing MPO then you reduce your dynamic range, i.e. everything is more compressed - your intelligibility MAY get worse. I believe with your new settings “whistle block” is no longer in action. You are now used to a smaller range of loudness. As soon as there is a peak you feel it as too loud.

@Laura_B said:

If I leave the setting alone,will the scratchiness damage
the hearing aid in any way ?

Ha. Funny. It sounds like distortion which would be your ears, not the hearing aid. When you hear tones your brain is not used to, especially high pitched, the brain doesn’t really know what to do with it. It may resolve on its own as your brain adjusts but if it is tones you rarely hear it may never fully resolve, but, if you turn it down to get rid of that you are also getting rid of some things you do want to hear.

The first time I was faced with that I decided to just leave it up and try to ignore the few scratchy tones. About 6 months later I realized everything was crystal clear.

Kind of what I was thinking Don, although I was wondering about a defect in the ear. I suppose a would tell you if the hearing aid was distorting or not because that’s what I think of when I see the word “scratchiness”. At least with a REM you’d know if it was the aid or the ear, or at least if the aid had distorted output.

Edited

@Laura_B, I agree with @grantb5. Maybe ask your to repeat the to see if that can diagnose the problem in certain frequencies. Of maybe you can try another fitting algorithm. For instance, Oticon’s VAC+ fitting rationale was way too loud and sounded distorted to me, so my AuD took me back to NL2. It might be more than just fiddling with the , or maybe it’s a bad receiver. Wishing you luck.

Thank you everyone.
I will ask. I do not believe she performs .
But I was wondering about the hearing aid working properly.
I have had these aids for about 8 months. I do not recall having this problem before now.
Since I purchased these aids we have been focusing on the programming for the right ear. I have always had a sensitivity on the right side that makes programming difficult. In the past I couldn’t find anyone that wanted to try fitting my right ear.
So I don’t know if I didn’t hear this noise because I was so focused on the right side, or if the left aid is not working properly.

In reply to @Don

I agree. My take is OP has cochlear dead areas and when certain high pitched sounds are presented at adequate volume, the brain perceives the sounds as a scratchy/staticky sound instead of a tone. I’m not a professional and could obviously be wrong, but that’s my take.

I’m leaning towards agreeing with the notion that it is dead areas that I cannot hear any longer.
At first I was wondering if the aid is not working properly, but, if I am hearing well on all other levels, then I would think the hearing aid is functioning correctly.
Thank you for all your help.
Laura

It could be so severe that nothing will ever be clear at those frequencies but, it is not unusual to have distortion with severe/profound loss when presented with the proper gain, and many times the brain will eventually figure it out. It has happen to me a few times and I’m glad I persevered.

Edited

In reply to @Laura_B

@Laura_B, Having is really important. You really should have that done to make sure the hearing aids are meeting your target prescription and if adjustments to certain frequencies are/are not needed. Without REM, the dispenser is just guessing at what is needed. Good luck.

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