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First pair of hearing aids but see no improvement

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Edited

Hell everyone, finally the fitting day came and I was so excited to get fitted and expected to hear so much better. I was fitted with oticon real 1 4 days ago and been wearing them ever since. However, I feel like there’s no improvement at all. I mean with or without the aids I hear the same. Will it get better? Is there a reason why it’s not working for me? Audi told me the aids I have is considered the best ones in the marketing already. Can anyone please share their experience with first aids / advice? Thank you 🥹🥹🥹🥹 I’ll come back in 2 weeks to trial the real 2. But I don’t think real 2 will make any difftence since real 1 is top of the line already and is not helping me.

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You should be noticing a difference. Was the fitting done with Real Ear Measurement or was it the factory’s first fit? My guess is you need some adjustment if you don’t notice any difference. If the Audi says they don’t need Real Ear, I would find someone else who does use real ear. Otherwise it is just guess work.

I think it’s the factory fit. Audi gave me the aids right out of the package. Audi also said that she typically doesn’t do real ear on first fitting. She’ll do that on me next time I believe

No offence but it sounds like your audi is really making a monkey of you by doing that.You’re telling me she didn’t even connect it to the software to configure it or anything? I’m really curious to know what she was hoping to accomplish by not setting your prescription up on the initial setup.

I’m not sure how all of this work . But she did have some kind of program on her screen and showed me an on her screen. She explained that that’s where we want my hearing to be at and just give me the aids . I assumed she programmed them the night before and have them ready for at the time of the appointment. I’m new to all this so I really don’t know how the fitting procedure works.

Well then she definitely did not do any real ear measurements. She more or less just adjusted everything to loosely fit your prescription. It’s no wonder you’re not perceiving any benefit from wearing them. When you go in next time, ensure she does real ear measurements when making adjustments.

Need to know domes and experience level set before doing a .

It’s a bit suspect that you’re not encountering any improvement though.

You should be getting quite a significant improvement just on a basic setting.

Yes, I’m surprised too. I was hoping for a bit of improvement. I still ask people to repeat, still hear people mumbling even though they’re like across from the table, basically everything is the same . I’m wearing open domes. I remember reading about how hearing aids can be overwhelmed at first like some people can only tolerate for a few hours at first. I thought i might experience the same thing but I have a completely opposite experience. I wear them from when I wake up til bed time. They feel just normal to me

Like when we got into the room she took the aids out of the oticon box then pick out the correct domes sizes then give them to me to put on. Then she turned on her computer and showed me the and play 4 different programs for me to hear so I know I have 4 programs. The general, music, speech in noise ,and music . And that’s it

@Rain.Drop: Brrrr! I was afraid you’d say something like that! I wouldn’t waste any more of your time on her. I’d FIND A NEW AUDIOLOGIST , pronto!

In reply to @Rain.Drop

Did she do a feedback test? Ask you some questions about your preferences for sudden loud sounds, clarity etc? I agree with others you should be hearing a lot more higher frequencies with the even with the basic programming generated by the software based in your .

The first time I put my hearing aids in, or my audiologist did, I could hear a roar, when I asked what it was, I was told it was the , even the voices sounded different.

For me the difference was unmistakable, not just that day but for the first two months and then it slowly began to sound normal.

My audiologist spent about two hours with me that first session tweaking and adjusting. I saw her again weekly for tweaks, etc. I was told to keep a notebook with thoughts, comments and experiences and we’d go through them at the appointments.

Just my experience.

In reply to @SOL

after I put them on I told her that everything sound the same she then flap the paper and asked if that sounded different. It actually sounded different compared to when I’m unaided. Other than that I don’t think I hear anything different .

In reply to @Neville

I tried to test things by taking the aids on and off to compare but still. Voices sounds the same too. I was at the theater last night to test out my aids. And I’m pretty sure with or without I still only understand about 60-70% . Still hear actors mumbling. Coworkers were talking across the table and I still couldn’t understand . My problem is the clarity of speech I think. I still hear the volume I just don’t hear everything 🥹🥹

Edited

Assuming that your is competent, and she did say that she doesn’t do on the first fitting, implying that she’ll do it in a subsequent fitting but she just wants you to have a chance to acclimatize to your aids first, then one possibility you’re not noticing any improvement at all is perhaps because she set the automatic adaptation manager too aggressively. That’s a feature to suppress the gain below the target level in phase 1 so you don’t get too overwhelmed at first, and gradually in the phase 2 and phase 3 will loosen up on the gain suppression so that by phase 3, you’ll be at full gain to target. Then in the second visit, if REM says that phase 3 is still under target, she’ll adjust it up even more to target (or vice versa).

So maybe you’re one of those first timers who don’t really need such a gradual adaptation period. Or maybe the suppressed gain in phase 1 is set to be too aggressive for you to notice a difference. But if I were you, I’d contact your audi to come back and see her asap again for further adjustment.

They are not properly fitted. My hearing has been the same since birth, and I went through 7 years of speech therapy to learn how to make sounds I couldn’t hear and not have a severe speech impediment. Having never known anything other than what I had heard all of my life, I didn’t bother getting hearing aids until I was in my 50s. My first set was from a licensed dispenser and not an audiologist. There was a little improvement, but if I forgot to put them on it was no big deal. My next set was fitted by an , and I heard things I had never heard before. Being mildly ASD I did not like hearing all of the new sounds at first, but with time and Xanax, I got used to them. You should ABSOLUTELY hear a difference if they are properly fitted by the looks of your . I never knew how quiet my world was until the first time I took my second pair out of my ears.

In reply to @Rain.Drop

@Rain.Drop said:

I still hear the volume I just don’t hear everything :face_holding_back_tears::face_holding_back_tears:

The volume you hear is probably just the normal sound through the vents of your open dome that you always hear unaided in the low and mid frequencies where you don’t have any loss. What you should be hearing more is the “sharpness” that should help you with the clarity. Like I said, if your audi has the automatic adaptation manager set way too aggressively in phase 1, the clarity may not be obvious to you if the aided amplification for the impaired frequencies is not enough initially yet.

Did you try to increase the volume to compensate for not hearing the clarity you’re looking for? That may be a temporary workaround until you can come back to see your audi for the corrections.

In reply to @tomead64

I was expecting that too. I thought I would hear things I’ve never heard before 🥹. Is it common for the loss to stay the same like yours? Hopefully mine won’t progress. I think I was born with this loss.

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