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Do you guys actually understand words/conversations?

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Edited

I have a wrs of 88% and i struggle to understand speech. Ive had hearing aids for 4 months now and im about to see my audiologist again in a few weeks.

I miss out on a lot of conversations and i feel hopeless. I dont wanna live like this forever

I havent had rem yet. Should i ask my audiologist?

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Without my aids I have a word recognition scores of about 50%. I wear Oticon INTENT1 aids and with my aids i understand about 90% of what I hear. I have a severe hearing loss, mostly in the speech understanding frequency range.

@teshhwhsi said:

I miss out on a lot of conversations and i feel hopeless. I dont wanna live like this forever

OK, I am wowed if you have such a high word comprehension score! I think mine bobs along in the low 80% and honest to God, folks tell me they don’t even know I have a hearing issue let alone wear aids!

I think one thing that may help is: try to be more engaged and active in listening. It’s easy to get complacent or “lazy ear” if the conversation isn’t essential (same for TV, group gatherings, etc.,). But only by working that brain + ear connection can you achieve better speech comprehension.

When I traded up from Lumity Life rechargeables to the newer (but same model!) Lumity Life 312 battery aids (released last spring), I could tell that the new aids gave me a noticeable but not enormous improvement in speech comprehension. I grabbed on to that benefit and made a point of paying closer attention to folks talking. Over time, that seemed to boost my comprehension even more! I “leaned into it” and gained more confidence, which motivated me to listen even better to folks. So over time, I think I created some new pathways from my (cinderblock!) ears to my brain.

Yes, make/model and setup of one’s aids are going to make or break this experience! So you also need to articulate what needs changing/improving to your audi. Is it the high freqs? What are you missing? I think you’re well within reach of attaining truly optimal hearing aids. I’d KILL for your for starters … :smirk:

You can do this!

I feel the same and have been wearing aids for 15 years. The help a lot but my word comprehension has dropped down to below 50% due to tinnitus increasing over the years.

Try to take notes about your hearing. Indicate good and bad and the environment you are on at the time.
Show this to your fitter. Maybe it will spark better programming.
Good luck with this.

In reply to @Demiles

You can also take notes as described in the above post.
Audiologist and fitters typically appreciate this information. If they don’t find another fitter that wants to help you.

might make a difference but not necessarily. I had REM 2 days ago. My audiologist said that it came out more or less in line with my . He explained that some people have a significant difference with certain frequencies. But I didn’t. So it’s obviously important to have REM in order to get the best fitting. But I think the other advice in this thread is important too.

The problem with the Word Recognition Score is that I know the words that are going to be asked. I know my is probably higher when I’m being tested as opposed to normal conversation. Add a noise component and the Word Recognition goes down even more.

Did they test you for hearing words in noise or just quiet? Some people don’t struggle as much in noise as others do so their word scores can be misleading. You might need other things like a remote mic, tv transmitter, bluetooth streaming on your phone and captions to help fill in the gaps.

I’ve long felt the is of dubious validity because it’s measuring something that very seldom occurs IRL - understanding a single word, isolated from context. IRL, we hear words within groups and if we miss a word or two within that group, we use the surrounding words to make sense of the missed word(s).

If you’re aids are under fit, could help a lot. 2000Hz is a key frequency for hearing speech and you’ve got a notable, but very treatable loss there. My guess is that you just need more gain. By all means discuss with your audiologist.

Edited

mY is 80%. This is what my audy wrote in my file;
“Should not expect to hear/understand well in background noise, challenging listening environments, or in the absence of visual clues.”
That pretty much says it all. As soon as noise is in the picture, my understanding goes to hell.

In reply to @ruggb1

I think there are fatal flaws in the”medical equipment” we call hearing aids.

Some firms sell more hearing aids by spending less time setting them up.

In their case it’s all about money.

The people on this site are so helpful.

Specially the pros that answer our questions

I seem to do really well in a testing environment, but in real world situations I struggle. Everything blends together and I misunderstand regularly. When tested, I wish they would do tests with less predictable words. The words are unique in their pronunciation and the booth is so quiet, of course I can understand what they say. My brain is so used to translating, I can’t tell if I’m hearing the words or translating them.
Maybe I’m just normal and people are better than me at pretending they understand what other people are saying.

Edited

In reply to @OffendedOtter

@OffendedOtter
Yes and to me it has been a huge improvement. I am a veteran with service related hearing loss and my audiologist is the one that made that decision. My Real1 aids are my backup aids and while they are definitely a good set of aids they don’t give me near as good of speech understanding. And as an extra benefit i am back to only having and needing the default program plus my TV adapter, connect clip and EduMic. I wear custom ear molds that have the 105db receivers embedded in them. I have small vents. I can also enjoy music again after decades of not even wanting to hear music.

In reply to @Anywhoman

@Anywhoman

I’m the same. For years I’d sit there during a test trying for the highest score. What’s the point? Why did I pretend to hear better using my hearing aids?
My favourite book would call this bluffing.

I do it in conversation too. Bluffing doesn’t work.

DaveL

In reply to @aferack

I think that is of little use. They tell me mine is 80%. That’s in a quiet chamber! Come measure me in my home. I am in the flightpath for aircraft 1000 feet overhead, on final for Toronto Airport. If Im out on my porch, my neighbour listens to soccar games at high volume in another language.

I thought I would move and live in the dessert.

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