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Couple of additional points I should have mentioned or covered better in my prior posts:
1) Most folks will need an ongoing relationship with an audiologist for periodic ear wax removal and the occasional HA adjustment. Until I recently dealt with COSTCO, I bought my HAs via the mail/Internet and did my own fittings for several decades - having obtained ear molds from a regular audiologist. Fitting a BTE aid is actually a simple process for most people but could be a challenge for some folks.
Why - cost me way less than half for the same HA. A recent audiogram is all that is needed for a mail/Internet provider to program an aid to your specs - did it for quite a few years prior to COSTCO'S emergence in the market. Now - go to COSTCO - it is way easier (IMO).
My local audiology provider (a multi-location audiology business in my area - that I've 20 plus years experience with) has never given me flak about not buying aids from them. Ear wax removal and a tuneup is a routine professional service and you should not have a problem obtaining such services.
If a particular audiologist is "pissy" (pardon my French) about about providing services since you didn't buy the aid from them - just redial and find another provider. You don't want to deal with that business.
If your ENT MD confirms that you have Otosclerosis they may broach the subject of a surgical intervention - a Stapedectomy. I can't offer advice on whether its a good course to pursue. In my experience - my father had it done on both ears in the late 60s - it failed.
He went from hard of hearing to basically deaf. Success rates have changed dramatically since then - I believe its now more like a 90% rate - but - a failure may leave you deaf - its not a casual decision.
In my case - I was evaluated by one of the world's best expert MDs on the subject - the department head of Otolaryngology at Johns Hopkins in 1975. He gave me a 70 positive/30 risk assessment at that time. As a young husband/father at that time it wasn't worth the risk to me. I opted to use HAs and forego the surgery.
There have been enormous improvements in the surgical success rates to the current time. I do not pretend to have current information regarding this issue. It is a matter that each individual needs to assess for themselves.
I've occasionally toyed with exploring a Stapedectomy over the years but have ultimately shied away from it since I comfortably get by in my current situation. A significant element of my attitude is that hard data shows that going in for a medical procedure is one of the higher risk actions one can take. Perhaps my attitude will change in the future but I am oriented to avoid any medical procedure if I can avoid it.
As a retired geezer - if I don't like the hearing environment - I walk. Its one of the great benefits of being a retired geezer .
A few things I've found since I started wearing them
I only wear them when I must. They are not comfortable and the, "Give it time and you will not notice them" is, for me, bunk.
In noisy environments they don't really help. All I get is the same roar of noise with no language discerned, except it's louder. On the plus side my aids have a phone feature that transfers everything one picks up to the other one. So when we go to dinner or a bar I set the one on my wife's side to transmit to the other one. Works pretty well.
No one knows when I am wearing them. The color matches my hair and the tube leading to the unit in my ear is very hard to see. I've had people clean my teeth and not see them even when I mention them.
They have four possible settings. One of them cancels (more or less) anything not in front of me. Very strange at concerts when that one is on, but it can help some when the person is in front of me in a non noisy place.
Things I really, really noticed when I first started wearing them: Birds. Birds are LOUD! Direction. I find it easier to discern the direction of sounds when I wear them. Without them in and on I can be off by 180 degrees.
Quarters. I did not realize I wasn't hearing in that range (of course I didn't because I wasn't LOL), until I was handed a couple of quarters in change and I heard this high pitch "tink, tink" sound. It took me a minute to figure out what it was. Now when I get them in change I always bounce them in my hand just to hear them.
I find that if it gets too noisy I turn them off. Reminds me of my father. We used to have friends with a daughter that had the highest, screechiest laugh ever. As soon as dad saw her coming in the door you would see hand hand go to his ears. My right ear is the one that normally gets shut off.
Low end sounds I didn't hear then I don''t hear now. They tell me my loss is high end, but there are things I know I'm not hearing in a lower range because others tell me they hear them.
I like having them, but I do find it too easy to forget to put them in. Mainly because it's not a habit. If they were more comfortable I'd wear them all the time.
When you go to the movies do you find your HA are just fine or do you take them out and use the devices most theaters offer?
I keep my aids in AND use the neck loop device provided by the theaters. My aids have the the T-Coil.
This is how it works:
Quote:
A neck loop (which is a small induction loop) can be plugged into the jack of an FM or infrared receiver to send the signal to your T-coil; you do not need a headset. The receiver must have a jack for plugging in the neck loop; most one-piece headsets do not have such jacks. Neck loops allow the person’s own hearing aids or cochlear implant to regulate the volume.
The theater provides the neck loop plugged into the receiver. When the movie is getting ready to start, I place the loop around my neck, turn on the receiver, and switch my aids to the T-Coil mode.
It works perfectly. The last in-theater movie I watched was "The Imitation Game", a heavy talky-talky movie, and I had no trouble understanding the Brit accents.
After we left, my normal-hearing husband complained that he missed a lot of what was going on because he couldn't follow the dialogue.
Update: Went to an audiologist, as the gentleman who informed me about him had gone to 4 other audiologists before him. They may cost more than Costco, though having a genetic hearing loss, a gradual loss for 28 years, from 75% to
50, 40% decided the cost was worth it.
My Mom was deaf when she went home to Heaven at 93; if the good Lord allows me to live that long, want to hear.
Yesterday visited an ENT recommended by the audiologist, so he can keep progress If I should have continued bone
growth. As a few others have mentioned, I too, have otosclerosis.
Wearing hearing aids, I was bless to have a trial run; Before purchasing them. When I do remove them in the evening, do know quite a bit of difference, even in silence ! It does take a while to get used to wearing them, now have something in your ears ! LOL
My Mom is 82 and has hearing aids. I wonder why she spent the money because I never see her wearing them. I recently asked her why and her comeback was, "I can't wear them all the time." I felt she could have used the money to buy food, pay bills or on something more beneficial. What I really dislike when I visit her is that the TV is on too loud.
Oh, poor you. Your 82 year old Mom's TV is too loud for you. Poor baby. Soooo sorry you really dislike it. What's it to you? It's her TV.
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