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How much are you affected by a mild to moderate loss?

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Wondering how much others are affected by a mild to moderate loss or similar in understanding speech and daily sounds.Do you get sick of your hearing aids? I don’t have any other deaf/ people outside my hard of hearing family to ask about so I’m asking you guys😁.

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I was definitely having difficulty hearing people during normal conversation, especially just sitting across the table from the person. I noticed myself asking “What did you say?” “What?” “I did not hear that?” during even somewhat quiet situations. I had difficulty hearing the television, and my wife would complain that I had it too loud. At that point, went to , followed by audiologist to discover that I had mild to moderate hearing loss in one ear and mild to severe hearing loss in the other.

Knowing that the brain begins to lose the ability to understand or interpret sounds after a time, and that hearing loss can lead to other health complications, I had no trouble deciding to get hearing aids to help put off or prevent some of the health consequences that may be associated with hearing loss.

Not understanding or hearing what other say to you does have real world consequences. I personally am thankful that hearing aids have made a significant difference for me. I have been wearing them all day, everyday since I got them on March 26, 2023, and I intend to keep it up! Hope that helps.

My is more sloping than yours so you’ve lost more at lower frequencies than I have.

I got hit with bilateral Menieres just after the millennium 22 years ago, with varying/fluctuating effects on hearing for around 10 years afterwards. Everything settled into a mild/moderate loss around 2010. I went commando until around 5 years ago when I got Nuheara devices that helped me a lot. However, I have now migrated to Phonak Marvels and I absolutely looove them. They’re making a big difference in many aspects of my life. I have all the gear to program/adjust them myself which I find liberating, not having to join long queues for an audiology appointment just to adjust a few settings.

I never feel they’re a burden in any way. I’m grateful for tech that allows me to hear my grand-daughter’s whispers as she can now share little secrets with me. I haven’t said ‘What?’ to my wife in ages and I now ask her to turn the TV down a little which she finds very funny indeed. I’ve also lowered my voice considerably when speaking and all those around me are grateful for that. I hear the dawn chorus (when I want to) that I haven’t heard in maybe 30 years or more.

So, all in all, my story is one of great satisfaction with hearing aids.

Hope this helps…

@HomerSimpson said:

However, I have now migrated to Phonak Marvels and I absolutely looove them. They’re making a big difference in many aspects of my life. I have all the gear to program/adjust them myself which I find liberating, not having to join long queues for an audiology appointment just to adjust a few settings.

Dito : … I have migrated from America Hears (same as Sams club is selling “lucid”) and the P90’s are much better. I also have a Select In connected to my TV, now I can understand tv shows and enjoy them.

I didn’t feel like I was affected much at all - but my family did. In fact I only got my hearing tested to prove to them that my hearing was fine and they were mumbling and had the tv too low, but I was shocked to discover my hearing is not normal. Once I got hearing aids, people I work with also noticed the difference (even though no one had ever commented on my hearing before).

I am now on my second set of hearing aids. I had my first set of hearing aids for about 6 -7 years, and I would get sick of them all the time. Nothing sounded ‘normal’, in some situations I felt I would be better off not wearing them (like a noisy cafeteria) and I found them draining. I kept wearing them most of the time because I knew that everyone else around me found it better, and being my first experience with hearing aids I figured that was normal. But I got new about 6 months ago (More 1’s) and the difference is night and day. I don’t get sick of these ones at all, and wear them from the time I get up until I go to bed. I’ve even gotten in bed with them in forgetting I was wearing them - that would NEVER happen with my old ones. With my old ones I was never really convinced that they were worth the benefit, but with these ones there isn’t a whole lot of downside, so they are definitely worth wearing.

My hearing was already moderate and dipping to severe when I had my first test. were a welcome support at age 47. I tried to be open about wearing them and own it so that others might feel better thinking about getting a hearing test and HAs. I replaced them every three to four years and was happy I could afford to do that. The tech changes fast and each pair brought better support. My left ear tanked suddenly and I decided to pursue a cochlear implant sooner than later and I am so glad I did. I now test in the “normal” hearing range and those around me are impressed with how much better I hear. They don’t have to repeat everything and I don’t say “what” every other minute. I never was bothered by my HAs at all. Yes, in loud noise maybe, but I just turned them down and was happy to have the option where others didn’t.

I gather I’m at the cusp of moderate/moderately severe and I’m a ‘cookie biter’, so I have some lows and highs but the mids where most speech occurs isn’t there. I also have tinnitus, just for additional fun.

Without I can just about function in everyday life but everything is a lot harder to understand successfully. On that basis, using HAs is very much part of my life, like wearing glasses. Sometimes at the end of a long day it’s nice to disconnect, but my HAs help moderate the impact of my tinnitus.

After many years with NHS HAs I went private in 2021 via Costco and have had very high level of care and treatment.

I think it is very important to get hearing aids and wear them all the time with mild to moderate hearing loss. I’ve had hearing loss for 25 years. It started with mild to moderate hearing loss and I was having trouble:
At work in meetings and on the phone
In group social situations hearing people talk.

It can effect your brain, cause stress, depression and cognitive decline as well as not being as effective at work if you don’t wear hearing aids even with this type of loss.

I remember getting my first when I was at school when I was 14 (now 45). Was a big old thing for my right ear only through the NHS. I then moved onto / in left ear only from the age of 16 from a private audiologist.

My next step is to move onto with a which I should have done a long time ago but never really had the confidence for some reason.

Has being deaf and wearing HAs effected me over the years? Most definitely, but you can’t turn back time.

Although I wear my HA from the moment I wake up and then go to sleep I do on occasions switch it off for some peace. Such a good feeling. :grin:

It’s interesting…no one asks if wearing glasses is necessary if one has only ‘moderate’ distortion or loss of vision. Of course we want to see as well as possible! the world is a wonderful place! Similarly, I want to hear as best I can, especially in terms of carrying on conversations with others. at the least, it’s a quality of life issue; but really it’s more. I don’t want to stumble around with 20/50 vision either.

As someone with progressive genetic deafness I can tell you I was much more affected when my loss was still mild than I ever appreciated. And one place that applied was having to work so darn hard to understand speech, simply not recognizing the disproportionate amount of exhausting focus and brainpower I had to use compared to Hearing peers. In fact it was a friend who said, “you can’t hear.” I was in my 20s then and was hearing much better than I do now. I didn’t say to myself “I can’t hear” for quite some years after that. I don’t know if the before / after perspective is helpful to you, it’s an odd beneficial gift of genetics and I might as well share on the off chance the information is useful to you.

In reply to @garethjwells

I’m in exactly the same situation as you. I paid attention to how hard I was trying to understand people in the weeks before I got my hearing aids and realized that not having them was exhausting. And I was running out of different ways to say “What?” when talking to certain people. Now that I do have them, I am constantly thrilled. I find them much less tiring than trying to hear.

I first started having trouble understanding men, in my family especially my teenage grandson and my son. My grandson once got so exasperated with my “What?” all the time that he told me to get my hearing checked because he felt like he had to yell to talk to me. I said speak up a little and quit mumbling lol.

For other reasons I ended up at an and saw an audiologist as well. As it turns out, I have mild hearing loss. The thing is, it wasn’t until I tried hearing aids that I realized just how much I’m NOT hearing. Things were so much…richer? It was pretty amazing. I’m picking up my Aug 1; one of the first things I’m going to check out is the night and early morning sounds of my backyard. I love the early morning hours outdoors before the sun comes up.

I only have very mild loss. It most affects me in environments with lots of background noise. While I can still hear almost all of what is being said, I have noticed I have to focus hard. If people are facing away from me or are more than a few feet away, then I start missing what they are saying. Im a teacher and am in this type of environment very often. If I wasn’t I don’t think I would have noticed my hearing loss much if at all.

I haven’t decided if hearing aids are for me yet.

I can get by without my , but putting them in is like taking off ear muffs. There is a whole range of sounds that I can hear or hear better with the HAs in. Doesn’t take long before you forget they are in your ears.

In reply to @user948

If you haven’t yet decided, you could start with over the counter () hearing aids, which are designed for mild to moderate loss. I tried the Sony CRE-E10 and loved them. You set them up at home with the help of an app on your iPhone. Takes 15 minutes. They come with a 60-day return policy when bought from Sony on line or from Best Buy. Some of the Best Buy stores aren’t aware of this, but it’s clearly states in the Return Policy section on their website under Extended Warranties. There are other OTC hearing aids as well, but this is the only one I have experience with.

I wish otc hearing aids were more available here as it would make my life so much easier as I live remote and have to travel to see an audiologist. We have a few that are available but they are more in line with headphones like AirPods or the nuheara ones. While I’ve been tempted buy a pair as I need new headphones soon anyway, I don’t think I’d be able to really wear them at work without having to explain why I’m wearing headphones all the time haha.

There are a few meh quality ones but the return an warranty on the ones I’ve found are sketchy.

There is a place a couple of hours away that does free trials but I’d have to go through the whole hearing testing thing again, take a day or two off work and the audiologist I saw last was a bit on the fence about recommending ha for me so I don’t even know if a new audiologist would let me trial them. A bit of imposter syndrome with this as I do recognise that my hearing loss is essentially trivial in the big picture of things.

In reply to @djonbrody

Yes, this. I noticed how different birds sounded immediately after getting . And my sweet cat sounds completely different to me now as well. I was missing so much.

Then one evening I was sitting next to the window as it rained. It was nice… I turned off the HAs and all I could hear was a lifeless, dull patter.

Then there’s music…

More easily understanding speech is obviously a huge part of it, but don’t forget the quality-of-life issue.

When I was getting ready for my new OSIA baha, my audi remarked that I would be amazed at how much less effort it would take to follow a conversation. I had no idea what she meant until after I got the OSIA. It turns out that folks with poorer hearing expend a ton of effort and attention just following along with others; there’s that much less available to us for responding! In any case I’m far more relaxed and easily enjoy being with others when I can effortlessly hear their words.

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