First experience with hearing aids

Coffee itself doesn’t, but coffee withdrawal will often make it louder. Most people are in their worst period of caffeine withdrawal first thing in the morning right before their first cuppa.

WRS is word recognition scores. Results are given as a percentage correct at a decibel level. If done properly this gives a good idea how much hearing aids might help. If 80-100% hearing aids should be pretty helpful if adjusted properly. If less than 60%, aids are less likely to be helpful and a cochlear implant eval might be warranted.

I have been wearing Oticon Real 1 hearing aids for about 10 months and I have questions similar to you. I have high frequency loss which drops off more. Many days I forget to put the hearing aids in and I don’t really notice a difference. Wearing them, I feel like I can’t always hear what people are saying. I also have tinnitus and have the same thoughts: does the tinnitus sound coming from my brain block my ears from hearing certain frequencies. I do like wearing them for listening to my SiriusXM when I go for walks, but they are expensive ear buds.

I have an annual hearing test (will be my second) coming up at the end of October and I will mention the Real Ear Measurement. There is a new audiologist where I go, so hoping they can be programmed better.

I have a similar hearing loss like yours and also wear the oticon reals 1. I had a mild tinnitus before and the hearing aids have made my tinnitus disappear. I do have the impression that the hearing aids help me - when I do not wear them, everything sounds muffled - even though I still have situations in which I do not hear optimally despite wearing the aids, overall I would say that it is better with the aids than without. cheers, oliver

Sorry for the slow reply.

1. If possible, always go for the highest level HA available. Not sure if the Signia Silk 7s would provide any additional benefit, but there’s no question that it’ll have more features, some of which might help.
2. I have the same audiogram shape, but a worse high end. I’ve trialed Signia BTEs, Silk 7s, and now Starkey Genesis AI CICs. The Starkeys are really good, and have an amazing array of customizable features.
3. A key point to improving speech comprehension in noisy environments is the HAs ability to differentiate between noise and speech (aka SNR - signal to noise ratio), which is a result of a number of factors, the most important of which is microphones and their placement. The gold standard is any dual microphone outside of the ear HAs. My BTEs were good, but I hated the external device and wire so I tried the Silks, which I really liked, but yeah, they’re pretty far in the ear with a one mic setup, so limited noisy environment functionality. The Starkeys are an in the ear, molded device, and the mic is much more external, so they operate great (for me) in noise). They are also Bluetooth enabled which I wanted, so I gave up rechargeability and they take a 312 battery.
4. My point in all this blather is that there are numerous styles, options, brands, etc., not to mention how your preferences enter the equation. I would do as much research and trial and error as is necessary until you find a result that works for you. In a way, the expression “Doctor heal thyself” is applicable.
   Good luck!

I was interested to read your experience as a new hearing aid wearer. I’ve had tinnitus for about 25 years and had Phonak hearing aids fitted just a few months ago (in Edinburgh, UK). My tinnitus is also high frequency and consists of a constant hissing, rather like air escaping from a tyre. My audiogram is similar to yours. I think it’s too early to say whether it’s helping my tinnitus. I certainly don’t expect that hearing aids will be a miracle cure, but I do feel that I have fewer days when the level is unbearably high, and more (but still rare) days when the level is noticeably very low. As for my hearing, there is a noticeable improvement in the sharpness when watching TV or listening to the radio. My only real problem that I still haven’t solved is a strange clicking noise when streaming BBC radio programmes using Bluetooth. This only happens when speech is involved, with the sounds in time with the words.
Phil

The first thing I noticed when I got my hearing aid is how loud some things were that I didn’t hear before. Like rattling pills in my pill bottles, etc. I thought my wife would hear better when she got hers but she also doesn’t notice much of a change. I still have to repeat a lot to her. I notice a big difference because my hearing is a lot worse. The main thing is that when we age we want to keep our brain as sharp as possible and with a hearing loss it can affect that. Waiting too long can affect your cognitive abilities. I have a 99 year old Aunt with horrible hearing and her hearing aids help stabilize her ability to keep her brain as sharp as possible. I don’t think hearing aids do anything for tendinitis but try eating fresh pineapple, that has worked the best for me. I have tried supplementals and they don’t seem to do anything for me. I like to put pineapple on my cereal in the morning. I found out about it in an article my wife read. Not sure if canned pineapple works as good as fresh, haven’t experimented enough.

Perhaps consider the Airpods solution in the meantime?

I’ll probably give it a go, yeah.

Pls revert with your experiences, yeah?

I’d say it’s hearing loss that is not being noticed by the person himself. How do you miss what you don’t know you’re missing?

For me, it was the Dawn Chorus…