Hi I’m a new user, this is my story please advise me

I have tended to avoid large gatherings, When I went to that meeting I had my new aids for less than a day. I have even wearing hearing aids for over 20 years.

First thing: relax. Hearing aids today are comfortable. They interact beautifully with iPhones; I steer people to my cell phone because the sound quality is better.

Second: you may well be relying on lip reading more than you think. I absolutely knew I could not do lip reading, because all the sports fans I know are much better than I at lip reading! Yet, a few years ago, I was doing an interview with a newspaper reporter in an airport terminal — challenging situation, but I was coping fine. She asked, “can I film this?” I said “sure,” and she held up her cell phone in front of her face and suddenly I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. Who knew?

Tell your audiologist that you’re a pianist. Some hearing aids shift pitches, so their wearers can hear speech more clearly. You’ll want a program that doesn’t do that! But there are articles here by very serious concert pianists who got a satisfactory result. You’ll be fine.

My hearing aids (Phonak, but there are other good ones) are actually better than AirPods. Of course, they’re a little more expensive, too. But they’re fine.

Lots of good questions. I’ll answer a few of them from my experience. I was about your age when I found out I needed hearing aids. It was a real shake-up experience. That was 30+ years ago. My low frequency loss hasn’t changed at all during that time. My high frequency hearing has just gone from normal to what you see in my audiogram over the last 5-7 years. But, it’s my understanding the degree of loss over time can be very different for different people. I’m just telling you what mine has been so you know it’s quite possible that further loss may be minimal. You too can get to be 60 years old and still hear (much better with aids).

As far as hearing aids making your loss worse, I don’t think so. But, I definitely understand that fear. When I first got my aids that possibility terrified me. That I’d become so dependent on those devices that if I took them off I would no longer be able to hear without them. Hasn’t happened. But, I have experienced a weird thing recently as I’m adjusting to new aids that woke up that fear. Somehow, when I would take them off after a day of wearing them my ears felt stuffed snd I couldn’t hear the way I ordinarily do without them. Something about the adjustment I guess. But I don’t know what. I stopped wearing them and went back to my old ones until additional adjustments could be made. That doesn’t happen now.

You can wear a pair of hearing aids for as long as they keep working (and can be service if necessary). My old pair is at least 10 years old. I keep them for backup. But, during that time the technology changed dramatically. My new ones are soooo much clearer and I love streaming music and phone through them.

Hearing aids should be comfortable. When they are, you can forget their on your ears until you’re in the shower snd go to wash your hair!! Arrgghh, don’t do that. They don’t like water. As far as that stuffed up feeling, get vented domes or custom molds with vents. I wasn’t able to tolerate unvented. Occlusion was horrible snd I always felt like I was in a tunnel or room that was too small and also cut off from people by some sort of invisible barrier. With enough venting, that doesn’t happen.

As far as playing the piano with hearing aids, sure you can. An audiologist on this forum even recommended that kind of music training to me to improve my listening ability.

Wearing hearing aids all the time? That’s standard advice. And I’m sure good advice, but I just can’t. I do wear them most of the time but sometimes I just don’t want to hear everything (I’m an introvert who likes quiet and am very sensitive to loud sounds and noise) so I take them off. From my experience it’s important to wear them consistently enough that you’re not constantly having to re-learn to hear, so to speak. Which I take as at least several hours a day.

Good luck. Like the rest of us, you’ll adapt and highly likely you’ll still be hearing the world when you’re gray haired and toothless.

And I hope one of the audiology professionals on this forum speaks to your question about APD and what you said about hearing ppl but unable to understand what they’re saying. And having that happen at some point while you’ve been understanding them. I’ve had that happen. As I recall it may be part of the reason for the music-training recommendation. Since you have good low frequency hearing, but your high freq loss drops substantially in the speech range I wondered if low frequencies could be interfering with your ability to understand what’s being said.

@hass5744 said:

you mention genetic loss which means realistically your hearing will continue to worsen

That’s not been my experience and I was told when diagnosed 30 years ago that my loss was genetic. The loss I had then hasn’t changed at all. High frequency loss I have now started in the last 5-7 years. At this rate I should still be hearing when I kick the bucket I’d think.

I think we’d just jump the ship or one of the many other euphemisms.

A diagnosis
made 30 years ago could be wrong. I was diagnosed that my loss was due to a childhood illness. I wouldn’t put a whole lot of value in a diagnosis made 30 years ago

It could, but with deaf and HOH relatives, I doubt it.

‘Irrelevant to my assertion’ . I’ll have to copy that down and use it in the future. Just one final note. I have become dependent upon my hearing aids. Otherwise why have them.

Hi, Rain.Drop!

I haven’t been ignoring you. Life has been super busy. Just wanted to let you know I’ll get back to you shortly.

Irene

Another great feature of most HA brands will be Bluetooth remote microphones. My Resound HA’s have a “Multi Mic” that I can attach to a speaker’s lapel in a group, or set in the middle of a table in a small group, or attach an audio cable to and stream directly from my TV or other audio device with a standard 3.5mm cable. Their speech or my audio programs fly straight into my ears. Also invaluable in a vehicle, having the driver or passenger wear it to cut through road noise! The streaming distance can extend well across a large room.

I have a corporate job too but I’m working remotely. I’m just so scared when office attendance is required and I’ll be so lost in meetings and conference. I’ve never be in an office before but I’m sure I will have a hard time. I’m a bit relieved to see that you don’t have much difficulties in corporate environment and your loss hasn’t progressed much. I know the loss is individual but still. Do you mind telling me What HA are you using ? Thanks

I think the audiologist did mentioned that my low frequencies are very good and that’s why I can mostly understand what’s being said. Relieved to know your high frequencies had been stable for a long time and only started to progressed in recently years. Really hope mine can be the same

Thank you Irene !!!

Do you by any chance already own Apple’s AirPods Pro? You could import your audiogram or create one if you have a iPhone a use them as hearing aids not ver powerful ones but they might help. How to add audiogram to iPhone and map AirPods to your hearing profile2