How do I learn to be proud of my hearing loss/aids?

I just got my first pair of RICs 10 days ago. I wanted invisibility, too. I trialed Phonak Virto IICs, and they were helpful, but they didn’t meet all of my needs. Luckily, one of them needed to be sent out for repair during the trial period, and the audiologist let me use a loaner RIC. That experience woke me up pretty quickly to what I had been missing. I ordered a pair of RICs, and I love them. I never want to be without them. They are so comfortable and balancing.

I don’t know the cause of my loss, but I suspect it’s genetic too. I had a panel of tests and they were inconclusive, but I will probably get some more testing. I had severe loss on one side all my life, and now I have mild loss in my better ear. I suspect the mild loss is greater than what shows in my most recent audiogram. I don’t know why, but my grandfather became severely hard of hearing as he got older.

I ordered some hearing aid jewelry from Deafmetal. It will arrive tomorrow. I struggle with the look of the wires, but I am seeing them more and more as part of me. They will never go away. I will always need my hearing aids, unless lasik for ears becomes a thing, which it won’t. I am hard of hearing and that is who I have always been. Now I am more hard of hearing than I was, and I need hearing aids in order. to be my best self.

I am proud of my hearing aids because they connect me to hearing everything and understanding everyone. They are well fit and don’t have feedback. They help me to feel comfortable and balanced. They are essential to how I interact with the world. They are sleek, subtle, discreet, clean, and not invisible, but not calling out to be noticed either.

You could ask to try RICs..I hope you will love them too!!!

Try writing it out. “I am scared that if people see my hearing aids they will ___________". Write out as many as you can and then interrogate them individually and see if they are really accurate or a problem, whether you would do the same if you saw someone else’s hearing aids.

bhughes_99 I have been wearing HA for 3 years. My problem with music, unlike yours, is tinnitus. I have been able to ignore the very loud inner sound in my brain most of the time, but it has severely reduced my ability to enjoy music. Too much sound!

But after reading many contributors to this forum it seems many musicians and music lovers are wearing hearing aids but still immensely enjoy music.

Have you tried different models of HA?

I enjoy music, it just sounds horrible and I have the best possible setup with the Widex SMartRIC 440. No other HA even comes close to Widex for music. But music will always sounds horrible comparatively. Even the best Widex hearing aids only cover up to 10khz and if you ever played drums or sing and I do both , you’ll realize that so much of what you used to hear is gone or distorted beyond recoginition and nothing modern science can do to bring it back. Except for Widex, the HA makes really don’t care about anything above 8khz because it’s out of coverstational voice range, So 150 hz to 8khz is all the HA makers care about in audio range is and anything else is discarded. Even with the best they can do, I can’t hear a whistle and cymbals sound like shreding paper. Female harmonies sound like mickey mouse. I can still play, but I couldn’t tell you if what we are playing actually sounds good musically. I can’t speak for others, but as someone that used to do music production and ciritcal listenting, music is no longer enjoyable for listening, and while I can perform mainly because i know from memory what should be there, I can no longer do production because I cannot hear so much of the range and cannot trust what I can hear. And my hearing loss is considered as higher freaquency “mild” loss. It’s terrible and I can’t image how much worse it is for those with “profound” loss.

I’m not “proud” of my hearing loss. I find the idea of being proud of something that I had no control over to be nonsensical. My hearing loss isn’t an “achievement”. It simply happened and I have no choice but to live with it. At this point, I’ve had a hearing loss so long that I even have a hearing loss in my dreams.

When I got my first hearing aid, I was very conscious of it. Eventually, when I got a second hearing aid, I stopped thinking less about what others might think about them and more about how much they improve my life. I’m very glad I have hearing aids, because they allow me to live my life as closely as possible to how it would be if I didn’t have a hearing loss. They are far from perfect. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t notice it, but I would not give them up.

@Emily_2317 said:

I’m in my early twenties so I feel like that definitely plays a part in my need to hide anything related to my hearing loss. I’m scared what others will think if they see them.

Emily_2317, you’re in the IDEAL place to CELEBRATE a rockin’ pair of aids. You’re young, you’ll adapt to aids - IF they are properly fit - and you can definitely show them off if you can get a pair of playful, bright colored ones!

I’m 71 and absolutely LOVE my Phonak Lumity Life 312s - I have a pair in fuschia PINK and an identical backup pair in Caribbean Pirate TEAL. I am forever taking my aids out to show them off to folks - when at a restaurant, in a crowd of people, even on photo workshops when the topic is cameras, but I see that several there wear hearing aids! What I love about the Phonaks is that they are ROCK SOLID for BT streaming, do fabulous with the compatible Roger (remote) mic for streaming TV or audio on a laptop or even someone else’s speakerphone. I stream seamlessly among all pairs of aids with my Android Samsung Flip7 phone.

Thing is, you don’t want to MISS what folks are saying in your group! You young ‘uns talk FAST, walk FAST, think FAST! You don’t want to be missing the beat cuz you need some help hearing! You haven’t posted an audiogram (yet), but look at my CINDERBLOCK ears! Audiogram lower than a snake’s belly, yet I rarely miss what’s said on the TV, like NEVER miss what’s said on my cell phone, and so what if I miss a word here or there talking in loud places or in conversations. I just ask a person to repeat themselves (or declare the place TOO LOUD to even think in, let alone hear).

Don’t wring your hands over this perceived FLAW. Take action and get the best aids your money will buy. And get a pair of backups! Cuz you may be tossed in the pool as I nearly was many years ago wearing my NON-waterproof aids.

Keep us posted on what’s working for you. There are so many people who walk the walk AND talk the talk about aids and cochlear implants. Don’t jump to conclusions before you find out what’s recommended. Then come back here and get some feedback and advice before you put down the money. GOOD LUCK!

I have another more important thought process for you. BE PROUD OF YOURSELF. Take pride in everything you do, wear and say. Don’t look down on yourself regardless of what anyone tells you. In other words do your very best in everything you do, what you think about yourself is what is most important.

Proud is an odd concept to me for this. You did the right thing by trying to best correct a problem. I’d say smart more than proud. Anyway, it’s odd how there’s a stigma for some conditions like hearing loss, but nobody thinks anything at all about wearing glasses to help correct your vision or using crutches if you break your leg, etc… So, why do you care what others think? I had the same reservations at first, but figured that it was crazy to not do what was best for me and if others had issues with that, then that was their problem and not mine. Why would you not do what was best for you and improve your quality of life?

It’s nice that technology has improved to where many models are much less or barely noticeable, but you may not have the option to use them due to the extent of your hearing loss and your budget. Going to the audiologist, I’ve seen some patients with extreme hearing loss and there’s no way they could hide them, but I was totally impressed by some people who had theirs in bright red or other bright colors. They couldn’t hide it, so they did the opposite and it said that they were very comfortable being who they were and not concerned in the least about what others thought. You really have to respect that kind of confidence and self awareness.

Forget about being proud. Be thankful you are able to get them. And no one even notices them any more. If they do they will think they are ear buds. Personally, I have seen so many strange things hanging on peoples ears that I just don’t care. and really I have never noticed anyone wearing hearing aids at all. They are made to blend in, not stand out like so many rdiculous earbuds and head sets and things that remind me of Star Trek.

I want to add that I was on a bus recently and a young girl was wearing the strangest things I have ever seen. They looked like small neon green and black snowmen, one on each ear. She was happily chatting with someone on her phone and had to be hearing her friend through those things. What really caught my attention was that I could hear every word she said. On a crowded, noisy bus because I was wearing my hearing aids. I wouldn’t have been able to understand her at all without them. That made me feel good.

I absolutely believe that a lot of embarrasment over hearing loss is the stigma of age. Many people I meet ask me when I started losing my hearing; I assume because they’re worried about their own. (I always say it’s the wrong question; I noticed losing my hearing in my early 30s, but am pretty sure I never had good hearing.) I’d much rather be wearing my hearing aids than pretending to and struggling to hear.

I’m not proud of my hearing loss, but not ashamed of it either. And I’d be delighted with hearing aids that were more visible, just to remind people to talk more clearly around me. And to be clear that my hearing loss is not something I’m embarrassed about.

As someone once said: Youth and beauty are not accomplishments.