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Advocating My Hearing Loss

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I have written and shared this post with my friends to improve our communication.
What do you think of it? Is there any missing point I can add?

What I Want You To Know About My Hearing Loss130

How to communicate with a hearing impaired person, tips on how to approach hard of hearing people

Thank you!

12 people in this conversation5 min readJump to latest

:+1:t4: :+1:t4: Great post. I wanted to print it but unfortunately the black background makes that difficult. But well written. I bet a lot of people will copy and use this!!

In reply to @raylock1

For Raylock1… with the post open, do a CTRL-A to hghlight all of the text, a CTRL-C to copy, then in a new message or word processor PASTE WITHOUT FORMATTING to get the “clean” text. I am using Thunderbird but it will work with other programs and word processors like WORD. c!

For ZEEZA, thank you. c!

Great initiative and excellent writing, thanks so much for sharing this!
In addition to guiding your friends and colleagues, you’ve also given other people a fine example of how to advocate for ourselves, much appreciated,

Thank you all for reading and your kind comments!

@raylock1 Feel free to share, print or copy it! : )

Well thought out. Hey, what’s a “receiver?” It’s a bit long, but here’s more:

“When we’re on the phone, please speak slowly and distinctly, but please speak with a normal loudness. Raising your voice overloads the line, and it splatters.”

Note that the word, “don’t” wasn’t used. “Don’t” is sometimes lost in the brain’s processing, and the wrong meaning happens.

Well written and I can totally relate, but in my experience it isnt that others are uninformed, it’s that even when well informed, the next day they still communicate the same as always.

In reply to @Herbhornist

A receiver is something inside the hearing aids that I have to change it now and then.

I might make it short but I prefer that my friend read the full version.

Thanks for the tips, I will keep it in mind!

Edited

@Herbhornist

I’ve had to have the receivers on my hearing aids changed a few times.Wires break. Then the hearing aid doesn’t wok.

The hearing aid sits behind my ear.
There’s a wire that goes between the hearing aid and receiver.
The receiver has a in it and a dome in my case. The wax filter can get plugged. Hearing aids don’t work.
Dome is essential. I found here that the dome I was told to use allowed sound to leak back out and my volume was really low.

So I start by putting the hearing aid behind my ear, and insert the receiver into my ear canal. and make sure that the wire is tucked away gently.

My hearing aids are Phonak . Receiver in Canal. I have the medium power receivers. They come in 3 power levels.

Other more powerful hearing aids have a plastic tube that runs from the HA to the ear.

edit: My Hearing Intrument Specialist changed my receivers on Monday. He put in Power Receivers.

I find them noisy. Let’s see how long it takes for me to get used to them.

Zeeza, excellent work! Clear and concise, not hostile, very useful if people understand what you’ve written and put forth some effort to take your advice.

I wish I had the patience to write and circulate something like that.

Well that is lovely as a poem to read! Lots of thought went into this, and you covered ALL the key points. I just have a few minor edits for “Consonants Are Disasters”.

Perhaps the header could be: Context Brings Clarity

I can’t distinguish the sounds of most consonants. For instance, empathy and embassy sound exactly the same to me. Context is greatly appreciated even when you’re saying the word individually. Use the word in a sentence or please spell it out or write it down.

When I ask you to repeat a name or a number, please spell it out slowly or write it down. Pardon me if I caught your name incorrectly, please correct me gently.

Well that’s it! You sound like a very lovely and loving person. Blessed are those who you call friends. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

In reply to @DaveL

Thanks for sharing your experience!

The Moments hearing aids I tried were . This was one more downside to not having them. It gets very hot here and filters would get plugged quite often.

Dear @Zeeza,

I hope this message finds you well. My name is Usama, and I am reaching out to learn more about the experiences of individuals navigating life with visual impairments or disabilities.

I greatly admire your openness in sharing your journey, and I would love to understand your perspective further. If you’re willing, I have a few questions that I’d be grateful for your thoughts on:

  1. What is the biggest challenge you face when communicating or navigating daily environments?

  2. What tools or apps do you currently use, and what do you find frustrating about them?

  3. Do you find yourself switching between multiple apps or tools to meet different needs?

  4. What would make communication or navigation easier for you?

  5. What do you wish existing accessibility technology did better?

Your insights would be incredibly valuable and will help guide better understanding and solutions for accessibility challenges. Of course, feel free to answer only the questions you are comfortable with.

Thank you so much for your time and willingness to share your experience.

Warm regards,
Usama

Hey Usama,

Welcome to the forum!

These are quite difficult questions that need some reflection. I might write about it in detail later.

Noise is always a big obstacle.

Avoiding noisy places and seeing the faces and lips help make communication a bit easier

I have a Roger mic (I got it thanks to a member here). I also have myPhonak app. I didn’t use it because it required mobiledata. However, I checked it now and found it could be paired offline. I will try it next time I’m outdoors.

Actually, I wish hearing impairment could be fixed like vision, to be able to hear “normally”.

Hi Zeeza,

Thank you for sharing your experience!

I really appreciate your openness. Your points about noise, face-to-face communication, and the tools you use are very helpful. I also appreciate your honest reflection about wishing hearing could be restored normally.

Thanks again, and I look forward to reading more if you decide to share later.

Best regards,
Usama

I usually share my experiences on Substack. Feel free to read through it, and to reach out when you have thoughts on any topic.

Beyond Deaf-inition | Zeinab (Zeeza) | Substack3

Hearing loss, and beyond. Click to read Beyond Deaf-inition, by Zeinab (Zeeza), a Substack publication. Launched 9 months ago.

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