I still cannot understand speech properly

Blown receiver also.

I’ve talked to many seniors I know who wear hearing aids. Often they have never changed their wax guards. They didn’t know what they were or how to change them.

DaveL
Toronto

My Mom would just tell me that her hearing aids were “broken” and I’d go change the filters.

This is so true. My brother in law got HAs a year ago and never knew to change the was guards or clean them. I did that for him and showed him how. Astonishing his AuD did not go over that.

Even if they are new?

This reminds me of my medical treatment for sleep apnea. If I had a problem, i had to contact my sleep doc. It took 4-6 months to solve every problem…

Hearing aids are flawed because of wax guards and domes…the simplest parts in the treatment. My Phonak Audeo Paradise P90 wax guards drive me nuts.

edit: apologize for the rant.

It’s very common to go over changing the wax filters and brushing the mics multiple times and have the patient return and say “no one ever told me that”. There’s a lot of information with new hearing aids, so it’s not outrageous that people forget.

@hass5744 said:

he automatically cleans my aids while we’re talking about something else.

One at a time, I hope. Some audiologists like you to remove both aids and then they try talking with you.

Cohen - if the Roger pen helps you the Roger On will help even more. When I got mine a while back I used it early on at a funeral reception where normally I would not understand any speech even from 2 feet away in the crowd of people. With the ON and pointing at the speaker’s mouth I could cope for the first time in 20 years with a couple of cousins. The other modes - 3 mics - are helpful for small groups of 4 to 6 people.

Always found @rsinclair123 with the Roger on, Table mode is excellent, Lanyard or presenter mode is likewise, but Pointing mode absolutely sucks, in comparison to the first 2… I have several Roger devices, Roger On, Select, Pen, Touch & Inspiro, personally “Pointing mode” is by some distance is Roger’s worst feature… But, I am delighted to hear it works for you! Cheers Kev

Hi @rsinclair123, apologies just noticed your reply… Yes the Sinclair’s where I believe originally from the French extract, Saint Clair, shortened to Sinclair. I believe they came across/ escaped to Scotland with alongside their fellow contingent of French Knights Templars, 3 ships escaped I think, if my memory serves me correctly? King Philip never got a bean, they took the lot with them, these Templars where the worlds first commercial bankers, they where very rich! The Knights of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, to be exact around 1306, I believe they where noblemen, and also warrior monks… Philip of France, had them all excommunicated by the Pope, a death sentence in those days! Philip wanted their money & their land, the Pope wanted rid of them because they’d become too powerful, most of their fellow Templars whom they left behind, where tortured, and burned at the stake, literally thousands of them! Robert De Bruce granted them sanctuary in Scotland, he wasn’t caring, as he was at the time excommunicated himself, for murdering The Red Crom in a church/chapel, murder on consecrated ground was a big no, no, back then… This was rescinded once he became King Robert though, you couldn’t have a King whom was excommunicated One of the Sinclair’s built/ commissioned Roselyn Chapel as a place of worship for the Templars, allegedly where the “Holy Grail” is still hidden to this day, Roselyn Chapel is an absolutely stunning building, the stone work is amazing, Google it!!! The Templars then went underground, to emerge 4 centuries later as the Free Masons… Sinclair’s moved to Orkney, they where probably rewarded with an Earldom by “The Bruce” for the Templars assistance in the defeat of the English at the Battle of Bannockburn? Although, I don’t believe that was ever recorded history, but most probably it is close to the truth, to this day, the Templars & Free Masonry are still a secret society, they where born in blood, and their history is entwined in your own ancestry… You are of noble blood… Cheers Kev

I tied another technique to help my word recognition while on the phone - it was helpful so I am passing it along. For me, phone conversations are difficult. I find my iPhone set on speaker phone works the best. The other day I had an important call to make (income taxes) and tried something new that helped. On my iPhone I also use a transcription app called Live Transcribe that is very handy. It has better word comprehension than I do with my Phonak hearing aid and a Medel .Cochlear implant. I also have an iPad and I have the Live Transcribe on there as well. So for this phone conversation I fired up the iPad as well and it also picked up the conversation from the iPhone speaker. Now I could see what was being said with the iPad as well as hearing it with the iPhone speaker phone. It was definitely helpful. The accuracy of the Live Transcribe is supposed to be in the 90% plus range and I have been impressed with it. So I pass it along for others to try too.

Just going back to the OP’s question, I too have suffered from poor speech understanding with the new aids I have trialled (both Phonak Paradise and Lumity). Costco did a WRS test and I scored around 30% but I have doubts about how well it was done, but did indicate an issue for me.

I have been back to the HADs (Costco and Boots UK) many times and had many different custom molds made to get a fit that didn’t move in my ear.

But even when I finally got a custom mold that fitted nicely, I never reached a point where my understanding was as good as my old HAs (Phonak Virto Q90). The HADs just pressed the button to let the software choose the fitting. But it was always dull/muffled. I can program them myself, so changed the fitting algorithm to NAL-NL2 and things were immediately clearer. Not perfect by any means yet, but definitely better. That may be worth mentioning to your HAD if you still have issues.

I will also look at reducing the gains in the high frequencies (as one poster mentioned above) to see if I can gain more speech understanding.

@DaveUK

Thanks for your NAL-NL2 suggestion. I’m having problems understanding speech as well. This is a wonky business (buying hearing aids.) I’m not happy.

Thanks
DaveL
Toronto