Pressure in ear canal from hearing aids

@anon54276456 said:

I wonder where the pressure is coming from???

It’s probably not pressure? I expect that you are experiencing it as ‘pressure’ or that’s your best description of what you are feeling, but I doubt that the molds are popping out like corks after a day of wear (or being suctioned in)? Very strange though. If you had to describe what you are experiencing without the word “pressure” what would you say?

I’m using the sound recover because that’s actually helpful at work. All the loud high frequencies are ear piercing and that’s how they overcame that on my old hearing aids. I turned it off initially and I saw why it was turned on. If I turn the high gain down then I miss out on a lot. The sound recover seems helpful for me.

If I turn the low frequencies any higher, then I have feedback, hence the stupid vent in these stupid earmolds. If I fart they feedback. I’d like to turn up the lows, but again I’m having a massive issue with pressure in my ear canals, with or without the vent. Doesn’t matter which molds I have, I’m having massive pressure in my ears.

I’m running adaptive Phonak digital II. With prescribed compression. That’s what my old aids had. I tried dsl and didn’t like it. I tried semi linear in both formulas and didn’t like it. I’ve tried just about everything honestly and don’t like any of it.

The only thing I can see that differs is the compression ratios from old to new aids. But I don’t see a way to adjust those?

And I don’t see anymore clinicians in town to go to. I have been trying hearing aids for over 2 years now. I only started trying self programming recently. But all clinicians are great until you buy their product and amazingly become a hassle to see them and have to wait a month for a minor adjustment. It appears they just do whatever they want and you have no choice but to accept it. That’s why I started research self programing. Idk if you guys are in the USA but it appears to be a big secret. They remove the client from being a part of the process. If I ask questions I can’t get answers. If I make suggestions they look at me stupid. I’ve been to 6+ clinicians over the last 2 years and it’s the same exact thing with every single one of them. They aim to please until you buy and they are non-existent there on after.

l have the Phonak P70-UP aids and have no issues with them. Most of my life, l used hard shell full earmolds with no vents. l can’t use silicone molds because it inflames my ear canal and the pinna. l have to use the Starkey hard shell ear molds with no vent and l have no issues. Looking at your audiogram, you shouldn’t be having any vents in your earmolds when the aid is trying to amplify the sounds without any feedback. Go to doctor cliff audiologist website and search for your local audiologist that does best practices and perform real ear measurement to get the best results from your aids.

ok l see you had two REMs. Its the audiologist that didn’t properly programmed your aids. You need to find an audiologist that has experience with reverse slope hearing loss like you have. Audiologist should have reduced the gain to 80 percent and see if that helps.

I tried that myself. When I did that I ended up having to increase the gains and then the sound quality changed. I’m not an expert, but my guess tells me pressure would likely be coming from the lows, just my guess from how sound works. I can’t imagine hi/mid frequencies generate pressure, just my guess. But when I mess with the low frequencies I lose the sound quality I need, as that’s where my loss is.

I notice when I change the parameters from vented to occluded the gains increase substantially in the lows mostly. So I have kept the vented parameter on to reduce the lows, keeping the vented molds on. I just don’t understand where this pressure is coming from. In my 35 years wearing hearing aids have never had pressure like this before. Not have I seen a vented earmold before. Something has obviously changed in the delivery and no one seems to know. Phonak customer support was useless when my Audi called on his account, my Audi has no clue, an apparently no one else has experienced this either. But I’m pretty certain this isn’t something I can muscle thru, I’m pretty sure I am damaging my ears with the amount of pressure I am having.

And the Audi I ended up getting these aids from was my childhood Audi. So he’s familiar withy situation. But I wanted to try new options before I committed to him because he’s at the end of his career, but no one was able to help so I committed to him one last time

@anon54276456 said:

I’m pretty sure I am damaging my ears with the amount of pressure I am having.

What is it that you are experiencing. Try describing it without using the word “pressure”.

Does it happen if you wear the hearing aids while they are turned off? I know that’s a weird thing to ask you to do.

I requested an appointment with a cliff audi. Only issue I foresee is i already have purchased hearing aids and in my experience if you don’t buy the product from them they don’t want anything to do with you.

I couldn’t tell you at this point honestly, my ears are destroyed from these new aids, last time i had to wait 10 days before I could try them again and they destroyed my ears within 4 hours. My ears are mush at this point.

My old aids ran Adaptive Phonak Digital, the new ones run Adaptive Phonak Digital II. I have a feeling the problem may be somewhere in there. Also the old aids had a bass boost option, the new aids that option disappeared. The old aids had a 20db gain function too, I don’t see that on new aids. The old aids also had a 10 band EQ, the new ones have a 20 band EQ.

Like I’ve said, in my 35 years wearing hearing aids, I’ve never once experienced this issue. I’ve also never seen vented molds until I bought these aids as well tho. But regardless of the molds, vented or non vented, my ears feel like they want to explode with these new aids.

This will be my third generation of digital hearing aids. One constant with digital hearing aids in my experience is they become more and more inferior each generation. My social life has entirely diminished now with these aids. I cannot go out anywhere without getting a headache. I can’t socialize. I never had issues with analog aids for half my life, and each generation of digital my ability to hear and communicate gets worse.

I am going to try and see one more Audi that the other guy suggested I look into. If that fails I give up. I have more time invested in these dumb hearing aids than my full time job. I’d rather not hear if this is what it’s gonna be.

@anon54276456 said:

Also the old aids had a bass boost option,

I just looked this up on software, they have got rid of it.

I wonder why?

All the Marvel range have it, I wonder why the Paradise doesn’t have it? Really stupid!

Yeah Phonak seems pretty stupid at this point. But then again the Oticons were pretty stupid too. Have tried unitrons and resounds as well. They are all stupid. Honestly, the best ones I have tried were the brio-5 from Costco, I think they have the least amount of technology so therefore sounded somewhat close to my old aids, but the Audi there wasn’t helpful and I hadn’t gotten into self programming yet. This is my second pair of aids with this Audi, and anytime I express my discomfort with the vented molds or the aids in general he seems to be the least bit concerned. I may just have to tell him these aren’t working out and go back to Costco. Everyone is so bonkers about the latest and greatest “technology” but it seems to me the latest and greatest is garbage. I don’t need technology. The analog aids were way superior if you ask me. At this point I just want something as good as my old aids, I can’t take another downgrade like I did the last two pairs of digital aids I’ve owned.

It feels like bass boost is on full throttle all the time, like there needs to be an option to turn it off. If I lower the gain on the lows it’s takes away too much and the quality becomes real mechanical. I’ve tried manipulating the lows every which way and nothing seems to help.