How does hearing loss affect you?

I miss anger. Could you paste it close to where the tube goes into the mold? I have little daughers and I swear I would be a nicer dad if they wouldn’t generate such ungodly sounds.

The rest of the buzzwords are of course a given. If you recognize them as part of your hearing disability you can distance yourself from them somewhat and start focusing on other aspects of life. They still creep up on me, of course, but at least I am starting to recognize the associated moods and thoughts. Only righteousness tripps me up sometimes: Very hard to to give up on a point simply because it is associated with the buzzwords even when it is that well founded.

I get frustrated.

I’m on the phone. A lot. I mean - I have 25 conference calls this week that I am leading or attending. This is a bit of a slow week. I can’t hear fast enough, whether I am using the speakerphone (it’s a Cisco desk phone that retails for somewhere around $6-700) or my Oticons+ConnectClip (“who’s producing the echo?” Yeah, it’s me.). The sound quality is so completely dependent upon the microphone at the other end, which is usually the cheapest headset one can find.

For many years I didn’t realize the I had a hearing loss so life for me was normal or business as normal. Then I had a few hearing test and was told that I needed hearing aids, I brushed it off saying to myself that the test was wrong and I was hearing like I have always heard. It wasn’t until after my first wife pasted away and I changed jobs and also started seeing a wonderful lady that is now my wife that I came to realize I really did have a hearing issue. For a while I was depressed but I worked myself out of it. I finally got my first set of aids that costed me an arm and a leg and they didn’t really work for me correctly. Instead of getting depressed even more I started fighting for myself, and my hearing. I remembered that I was told when I was getting out of the Navy that I had some hearing loss. So I started my process to get into the VA system and to get hearing aids from the VA. This process was not that easy. I had no issues to get into the VA at the time due to being unemployed, but getting the aids was a 2 year fight.I had kept a copy of all of my military records when I was discharged and finally took them into the VA, after the third time that they claimed they could not find my medical records. I was screamed at for having my records, but as I told them the third time I was given them for my own records. I have been very happy with the VA system and hearing aids, and each time I get updated hearing aids they just keep getting better. How you handle disabilities or any other set back in life depends a lot on how you were raised. I was raised that with the help of my faith there isn’t a thing that I cannot do or work through. My newest aids are like I have normal hearing again. I put them in my ears in the morning and I forget them the rest of the day. I do not need extra programs and that is a huge factor in my well being. Now I have to say that to get my aids right I have had to spend a number of hours and number of trips to the clinic explaining my needs and my issues. I have had to keep my feet and also the feet of my Audi to the fire as they say. Yes it can be done you just have to want it bad enough and you have to care about yourself and are willing to fight for yourself enough to get it done.

I can relate. I regularly experience feelings of isolation, anxiety, frustration, and embarrassment which can lead to moments of depression.

I work in an office environment with regular conference calls, meetings and 1 to 1 conversations. Some people I can barely carry a conversation with, if at all (accents and soft spoken women mostly). Mishearing, thinking the group was talking about something else, can be embarrassing at times if I try to join the conversation.

It’s effecting my career development as I’ve developed a tendency to avoid people, which certainly doesn’t help. I wouldn’t be surprised if it effects people’s perception of my intelligence as well. I know I shouldn’t care what others think…

Perhaps I’m in the wrong career or I should just suck it up and work on my attitude. It certainly limits job prospects when ruling out verbal communication.

I’m done having pity for myself now.

I’ve experienced all of the above. I have become much more introverted over the years, and avoid many social situations. Conversations seem to move too quickly for me, and I end up tuning out. I would add confusion to the list. On the plus side, I think I have become more empathetic through the years. Who knows the hardships others are experiencing?

I experienced a lot of the above, not anger particularly, more resignation, and I don’t think depression, maybe because I’m an introverted sort to start with and never enjoyed a lot of social butterfly stuff, so I didn’t miss it.

That graphic ought to include embarrassment, though. That’s how I felt when in a dog training class I had to keep asking the person next to me, “What are we supposed to be doing now?” When I went to lunch with a friend and the waiter spouted off the specials, I’d have to have my friend interpret. I resigned from my dog club’s board of directors because they kept having board meetings via telephone conference, and I couldn’t understand most of what was happening. I gave up tv, not that I was a heavy watcher to start with, and just didn’t try to take part in group discussions when I was out and about.

In my case I knew and accepted I needed aids, and wished I could afford them. Cost was the barrier - and I didn’t even know how high cost often is. My father’s hearing deteriorated as he aged, and it always annoyed me that he insisted “his kind” of loss couldn’t be helped with aids (without trying them). Cost would not have been a barrier for him. Pride was. He could get nasty with anyone who hinted age affected him in any way.

So I dealt as best I could, and when I finally couldn’t stand it any longer and went to investigate aids, my first misplaced attempt was with a provider who fit me with $7,000 aids, not mentioning price until I asked - which was in part my fault for not asking up front, but I had $3,000-$3,500 in mind as the price of hearing aids at that time and finally felt in a position to squeeze that much out of the budget. Yeek! I about ripped them out of my ears. Got talked into trying them for 2 weeks anyway, found they didn’t help that much - which I now realize had to do with fit, not brand - and abandoned the whole idea.

Mentioning the whole, please speak loud because … to my regular doctor, he told me to go to Costco. Said of his patients who needed aids, the ones who went to Costco were the most satisfied, so off I went.

Not all of the changes the degraded hearing caused just reversed. I still watch a lot less tv than ever, still don’t dive into group situations. I’d already abandoned my landline phone after trying supposed hearing boosted phones, etc. At least I could hear some people on my cell. First the Rexton Trax 42s and now even more the KS9s are great improvements in that regard, but I no longer automatically answer the phone unless I know it’s someone I want to talk to. If someone leaves a ratt-a-tat–tat voice mail I can’t understand, I shrug it off instead of worrying about it. Those kind are almost always sales anyway.

So the hearing loss changed me, and the aids mitigated or reversed some but not all of the changes.

I would say withdrawal and a lessening-lack of verbal communication is one that effected myself for few years prior to wearing hearing aids.

Since I am a man, and wear short hair, I was having vanity issues, that as a man in my 40’s at the time I tried very hard to prolong the need to wear such, and only hurt myself.

I had to tell and remind myself, that it was close to a full 30 years at that point in time working as a Railroad Mechanic that such had taken its toll on my hearing, and that it should be nothing to be ashamed of.

At current day of course, Hearing Instruments have become much smaller, much much better in performance than what was around a mere 15 years ago.

In retrospect, the alternatives of loss of communication, missing out on hearing so many things in life, besides also being a personal safety issue of not hearing correctly is something you cannot place a price upon.

It is a two edged sword for me. I am younger than some (hearing damaged mostly when I was in the military).

I have young children. So, sometimes it is hard, as I get used to hearing aids and am still spotty wearing them. Last night, I wished I had them in as I spoke with another Mom waiting while our kids did a dance class and I had a very hard time hearing her.

Other times, I kind of like not hearing because the world feels so intrusive and loud with them in.

I do know my hearing loss annoys and frustrates my coworkers (of all things, I work in MRI & while Oticon has a replacement, it would be $500 to replace them if I ruin them in the MRI scan room, and they are ferrous and pull (toward the magnet) in my ears if I get too close. So, getting them hasn’t really helped at work.

They are nice for listening to podcasts in my car because I can finally hear them better.

My best friend keeps buying a series of cheap, crappy BT headsets, and has an iPhone with AT&T that has really crappy sound even when he’s NOT on a headset (because they oversell subscribers and cut way back on bandwidth). It irks me to no end. Having a phone conversation with him is an exercise in stress and frustration.

Thankfully, at work, I try to steer people to RingCentral meetings or Zoom or some kind of videoconference so I can use headphones and they’ll be on regular microphones. We also got a Jabra “Speak” speakerphone (USB/BT) to use with computers or phones as a high quality speakerphone for a phone conference. SO much better than those stupid, scratchy iPhone speakers that everyone seems so enamored with.

I have att and have no issues with the service in my area. And everyone tells me the call always sounds good. Most of my calls are over 250 miles away also.

Thanks for the data point. I live in the SF Bay Area and the population density is very high. Communication cells are overloaded, I suspect.

I live in Central Arkansas and the hills are my only issues here with signal. We do have dead spots due the hill.