@jfgimmbfsbf
So now your ears are tested in two ways you know for sure there is some hearing loss. The two tests are almost look alike. Some difference could be expected.

Go to the most sympatic provider and ask for help and do the free test of hearing aids. Try them out and look if it fits you and works in the following weeks.

That’s it! If it helps it would be great. If not you can always discuss the problem further. It is not the scores of your ears by tests but the try out of the advice for hearing aids that could help you.

Good luck and hopefully you’ll get better.

thank u for ur response!
yes i have seen that the tests are similar and i’m just averaging them out at this point lol!

the audio’s attitude though and the way no one stopped to ask me why i wanted to test for hearing loss just felt soooo strange to me. the jokes about how i wouldn’t even benefit from hearing aids felt so icky and it felt like the opposite of what she should’ve done/said. no one told me where to look for hearing aids in our insurance network so i’ve applied for some appointments near me and hopefully monday i will hear back and be able to talk to them about my insurance

Tests for ENT diagnostics and tests for hearing aid fitting can be really different in a way that is confusing for patients. They really serve different purposes. The ENT is looking for whether there is anything medically wrong that needs to be followed up on, as hearing loss CAN be associated with certain medical conditions. They are also looking for whether there is any possible surgical resolution to the hearing loss, which is sometimes the case. Based on your age, your experience, and the confuguration of your hearing loss, I was 99% sure that the ENT wouldn’t be interested in you and all the other providers probably felt the same, but you still needed that ENT clearance to be sure. But in this context “not interested in you” just means that he doesn’t see any possibly-frightening medical concerns nor any potential for surgery. Your hearing loss is just your hearing loss (likely genetic causes). ENTs know comparatively little about hearing aids. Hearing aids are not part of their coursework, and so the degree to which they know ANYTHING about them will be more related to their personal interest and what they have been told by other patients. Older ENTs remember the good old days of hearing aids being more crappy than good, and people waiting for very severe losses to get them because they performed poorly.

The person testing for the ENT is sometimes and audiologist and sometimes just a tech. They usually have less than 1/4 of the time to spend with you compared to someone who has you booked in for a hearing aid assessment, and they are just there to do the test. They MIGHT also fit hearing aids, but they might have done nothing but ENT tests for their entire career and also not know a lot about hearing aids. I’m sorry they said that hearing aids would do nothing for you. I don’t agree with them.

You are very young–still school aged almost. In regards to finding the best person to help you. . . if you can figure out who in your area does pediatric hearing aids, it might be valuable to go talk to them. They can either help you with hearing aids directly, or probably have a lot of young hearing aid users transitioning to adulthood and therefore good recommendations for adult providers if they themselves have an age cut-off for services.

i really only wanted to go the ENT after to confirm whether or not they thought it was genetic (which he did confirm) and to prove to my mom that my issue was real. when i told her about my initial test and the results, she did not believe me at all and told me it was nothing. well, now she believes me since this was a doctor she trusted. the tester yesterday was an aduiologist but i just do not think she did a great job.
i’m already looking for places near me to do hearing aids with my mom’s insurance (unfortunately there aren’t a whole lot). i would have to do an adult doctor as opposed to a pediatrician but i think the issue is more finding people in our insurance group. my mom has great insurance because she works at the city hospital but most of the places that take our insurance are in SoCal (we live in the Bay Area). not much i can do now that its saturday but hopefully my grandparents, my mom, and i can find somewhere. my mom wants to ask the ent about it but i’m not sure i want that

i have considered it but am a little hesitant since i am younger i’ve been stalked from a support group before but i can put my general location maybe

Hi jfg, I’m now 76 i had this problem in my teens, i always wondered how others could understand words to songs i couldn’t, missing lots of teacher info. In class, not keeping up with conversations with friends, my hearing was tested over the years , indications are don’t need hearing aids, . Ive been wearing them for 3 year’s now, its a lot better but still have problems with comprehension at times, am still missing certain tones,
I’m looking at trying out a Bluetooth microphone, this will help talking to individuals and not picking up external noise, most schools and lecture rooms have Bluetooth loop systems and wow what a difference,
Good luck, stay with it, don’t ignore it ,the technology is there, you need to use it.

bone conduction thresholds?

my bone conductions were essentially the same on both the initial and the newer test. the newer was maybe 5dB higher but the same shape as the initial one

I have congenital hearing loss in my family and my Mum never believed it as she was always comparing to herself. Her experiences as a kid growing up in the 50s with a box she had to carry around for her aids meant that she didn’t want that stigma and life for me and denied. She always said don’t get them until you have to.

When I got to 25 I bit the bullet and they were a game changer for me. I was techie so I love playing with things and learned a lot on how they worked and what they did. My first lot were analogue but once digital came along and I got to play a lot more with Bluetooth connections and everything my life improved dramatically.

I am 52 now and been wearing them for 25+ years. My Mum comes to me for advice now and I have found audiologists that have transformed her life now too which is lovely.

My Mum was always shamed by hearing loss and she didn’t want me to experience that. What I have learned is that everyone’s hearing loss is very different. The thing about communication of any kind is that it is between two (or more sources). You can optimise your end all you like but if you don’t tell the other side what works for you they will never be able to adjust to help.

I am much older now and less worried about my image but what I will say is that if people genuinely care for you then telling them how to help you will only make things better for you.

It is easy to say don’t be embarrassed to tell people you are deaf or to ask them how to speak to you but it’s much harder to accept that leap of faith and actually do it. What I have found is when you ask for help people generally do really try. By knowing your grandad is deaf you adjust for him so what’s different?

You are brave at 19, my son is 24 and he also wears hearing aids and I am thrilled that the younger generation are starting to see hearing care just like glasses and be less conscious of using the tech you need to help you.

Good luck with your journey when you find a good Audi they are worth their weight in gold. As a musician you know that it takes a trained and talented person and an instrument to make good music and hearing aids are no different.

@threluja said:

What I have found is when you ask for help people generally do really try.

I agree.

Hearing loss can get tricky because it’s hard to see/notice so you often have to ask over and over before someone remembers. And it’s also hard to understand for someone who doesn’t have it, so you have to find creative ways to help people understand what it’s like so that they are better at understanding how to help you.

But outside of school most people are nice and will try.

(Middle school children can intermittently be little psychopaths though.)

I describe mine as like autocorrect. You’ll be typing a message on your phone and 85% of the time it gets what you say and the other…well how they hell did it get to that word

That’s my brain with hearing aids.

Completely agree on middle school children too

My school class, early 50s, age 10, was given a ‘hearing test’.
Ten headsets at a time were handed round, playing steadily fading numbers from a crackly vinyl.
Teacher put the phones on my head, not properly
fitted. As a radio hobbyist I knew a bit, and reached up to settle the things. ‘Leave them alone’ came the bellowed reaction. So, of course, test was useless. Could not hear many of the numbers. My poor score was duly handed onward. No follow up.