Hello, everyone.
At the age of 58, I am using hearing aids for the first time. Although I have had tinnitus for 13 years and apparently otosclerosis, it was only a few years ago that I started experiencing real problems due to hearing loss.
What I did notice was that I couldn’t hear well when someone was talking quietly. Over time, there were more and more situations where I could not hear or understand people. I stopped going to the theater because I could hear about 1/4 of the show, and that was if I sat in the front rows. Conversations between multiple people in a quiet room became a nightmare for me.
Anyway, I now have pretty bad mixed sensorineural and conductive hearing loss, more in my right ear. And it’s a cookie bite.
I’ve been using the Beltone Serene 17 microRIE for 2.5 months now, and I’ve had several fitting sessions so far.
I can’t say that there is no improvement, but not in what was my biggest problem, quieter voices.
For the first two months, my fitter kept me at 60% of the volume recommended by the computer so I could gradually get used to it. From the start, very few sounds were too loud or uncomfortable. My voice always seemed too amplified and as if I was talking from inside a barrel. I use an open dome in my left ear and a in my right. I wear hearing aids 15-16 hours a day. Still, there were many occasions when I didn’t understand people or couldn’t hear them at all. I often had to ask to be told again.
When speech was loud enough for me to hear, I sometimes heard distortions. The sound is similar to feedback, but only I could hear it. This also happened with my voice, too. It seems that the right ear, or the right aid, is causing these problems.
When I told all this to my fitter again, at the next session a week ago, he calmed me down like always, 'Take it easy, it takes time and patience. ‘ But then he amplified my hearing aids. I don’t think it’s 100% now, but it’s noticeable that many sounds are louder. Now I have that effect that everyone talks about, ‘a bunch of new sounds that I have forgotten’. For example, in the fitter’s office, I heard the sound of the wall clock for the first time since going there. On the street, hearing aids apparently still muffle traffic noise and other too-loud sounds. Some sounds in the house annoy me: chairs and wooden floors creaking, dishes clanging, and chewing (my own and other people’s). I realized that the keyboard I have at work, which I thought had a nice click, was actually rattling terribly.
But still, nothing is too uncomfortable, and I can still wear my aids all day.
Also, we seem to have reduced those ‘distortions’ I’ve been hearing by lowering some of the frequencies. Now I hear less of those odd sounds, even though everything is generally louder. My voice - even louder.
I thought I would surely hear the quiet voices better. And then, on the third day with the new settings, I had to go to the bank. God, not only did I not understand what that woman was saying, but I heard nothing from her mouth. And it wasn’t a counter situation behind the glass; we sat at the same table. There was no noise; it’s a small branch, there was her colleague at the next desk, no other people, an air conditioner that was almost inaudible, and a printer that threw out three printed sheets.
When I asked her to repeat what she said, I barely understood her. Maybe she really was extremely quiet.
My next fitting session is in a month, and I’m getting more and more worried. Will I ever be able to get any improvement? Worst of all, when I take my hearing aids off, I can’t hear what I used to be able to hear without them. I got a lot of sounds that I could happily live without. My own voice annoys me. But there is no progress in what is most important to me. Is that cookie bite really that complicated?
Sorry for the long post.
I would really appreciate the experience of someone who has been able to hear soft voices with hearing aids.
You’re ignoring this member’s posts.
Hot Springs Village, Arkansas
