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Iic adjustment not good enough

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I’ve had Oticon hearing aids for the last 11 years or so. Recently I noticed that my hearing has gotten worse, especially in my left ear. A trip to the place where I got my hearing aids confirmed. The tech adjusted both hearing aides. However, the left with the hearing aid is still noticeably worse than the right. The tech claimed he couldn’t adjust it any more without causing feedback. Does that sound right? There don’t seem to be any audiologists around in the whole state anymore, and he was pretty unfamiliar with IIC hearing aids.

@KathyO said:

The tech claimed he couldn’t adjust it any more without causing feedback. Does that sound right?

Yes, that sounds right. The microphone and the speaker are very close on an and if your hearing loss is severe enough you are often pushing up against the feedback limit. You might be able to get a bit more overhead if you close off the venting and get a deeper, tighter fit. However, hearing aids need to be comfortable so there may not be room for either depending on your ear. People do “grow out of” IICs with progressing hearing loss.

Turned out there was a problem with the left hearing aid. I experimented a bit when I got home. The left aid was just as quiet in my right ear, but I could hear fine if I put the right aid in my left ear. I ended up sending it in for repair. The replaced both the microphone and speaker. Just got it back today, adjusted for my current hearing, (which the tech didn’t want to do - said I’d get feedback because that’s what it did before). It now works great with no feedback.

All of that could be true though.

You could have an aid on the edge of a measured feedback threshold with a subsequently defective receiver that probably looks like it doesn’t want turning up. However, when the receiver is replaced it actually sounds older than the failing one on lower or similar programmed levels of gain.

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