When to give up on hearing aid or audiologist

In my opinion, it’s not about the hardware, it’s about the person doing the programming.

If you decide to use a different vendor, I would not let them rely on the any previous hearing tests from other audiologists. Make sure they start from scratch, then they totally own the results.

Thanks for your input. I think these aids have the potential to be really good. That’s part of the reason I hesitate to give up on them. The audiologist is really trying. I only came across one other complaint when I googled issues with white noise. In Reddit, same issue I have, in a quiet room, a noise can trigger what that person called audio adjuster, and the very loud white noise comes on. Super annoying, not something I can learn to tolerate. I just wish there was a solution.

Thanks. My hearing test is from my ENT not from the audiologist fitting the aids. Results have been mostly the stable over the years, but definitely losing more loss in high frequencies. I have been informed it’s not a common hearing loss.

Thanks, I do write everything down as well. I can’t rely on my memory too much lol

30 days is not a long enough period for your brain to adjust. When I first got my aids the sound of my own voice sound odd and it takes time for the brain to adjust. So in my opinion, Bail! Bail! Bail! on your current situation. Find a provider with a much longer trial period and a fitter that gives you confidence in their ability.

@ButchNH said:

30 days is not a long enough period for your brain to adjust.

Oh, I don’t know. Honestly I think I’ve got a good enough sense of a new pair of hearing aids a week after they’ve been properly fitted. But of course, the hard work of listening went into the fitting process! agreed, it may take longer than 30 days to properly fit a new pair of hearing aids. And yes, it takes time for our experience to adjust to new sounds, especially our own voice if custom molds are involved.

I don’t think that we folks who use hearing aids can afford to be “consumers”, in the sense that we expect the “product” meet our demands and perform right off the bat, like a vacuum cleaner or a light bulb. We have to be active participants in a process aimed at helping us to achieve our best hearing. This will Always take time. And the process is the opposite of “consumerism”.

We have to work with our providers in order to bring about a good result. I’m lucky in that my provider was able to make time for me every week in the process of dialing in the new aids that I was trialing, and them swapping them out for a lesser grade, cheaper model to see if those worked for me. Because of this I went beyond the 30 day trial period, at my audi’s suggestion. In the end I was happy.
But I worked with my audi to get the results I needed. We both learned from the process.

Thank you for the useful information! Good to know to make a return not an exchange!! Thanks!

@Eileen I have the same hearing aids and had a similar (or same?) issue. The way I described it to my audiologist was an amplified “wind” type noise. For example air coming out of vents in my vehicle or house registers would trigger some type of amplification of the noise. She contacted Starkey and they gave her a recommendation to try and it resolved my issue! I had to go back into the office for her to make the adjustment using Starkey’s programming software (it was not something that could be done via the My Starkey app). Unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly what the setting was, but it may be “Adaptive something” and it needed to be turned Off.

I’ll email my audiologist to get the exact setting and post an update, but in the interim if you are still struggling with this issue you may want to mention this to your audiologist and see if they know what setting it is (or have them email Starkey…I’d assume they’d get a similar recommendation).

Wow, thank you so much for this information!
I really appreciate how folks on this forum take the time to reply and really want to help. I’m so grateful.
Not that I’m happy you had this problem but I’m glad I’m not the only one! I only saw one other complaint about this online.
I had another visit with Audi today. She really doesn’t know how to program aids with my type loss but hopefully the person from Starkey who made adjustments knows what she was doing!
There was a hint of it in the car on my way home, but no where near as bad as before. Work environment has been the biggest problem with this issue. So I’ll find out tomorrow if the changes made will help there. I will certainly pass along what you told me if it isn’t resolved. Thank you so much!!!

Thanks for your help! My last pair was Resound and they were decent. I had to change hearing aid fitter due to insurance. They didn’t have Resound at the office, so I first tried Phonak, did not work for me, so I tried Starkey. I believe the problem is this audiologist is inexperienced, not so much the aids. But she will let me try Resound if this recent/today adjustment doesn’t fix the issue. Even though she reached out to starkey twice before, she believes the person who just reprogrammed them knew what she was doing. Fingers crossed she’s right. There are some things I like about these aids but I was happy with Resound, so I’ll definitely try them if this doesn’t work. Thanks for your advice!!

Thank you so much for checking and getting back to me. I really appreciate your help!! I will definitely pass along if the wind noise isn’t completely resolved. The Starkey person turned off a few things. Not positive if that was one of them. So far much improved, but I won’t know for sure until I work in the area that I had the most problems. So if it persists in that setting, I will be sure to try this. Thank you so much for your time and effort!! Happy Holidays!