My experience with hearing aids
I've sandbagged for years about getting hearing aids. I remember flunking my first hearing test back in grade school. My parents were so upset that I got a bad grade on the test that I decided I had to study harder to pass it the next time. Watching other kids, I learned that I should just nod and say I heard things when I really didn't, and then I would pass. So I did, and I did.
Since my last name starts with an A, I always ended up assigned a front row seat in the alphabetically ordered grade school and high school classrooms. In college, I could sit where I wanted, so I would sit wherever I needed to sit in order to hear. I really don't remember my hearing loss impacting my life much until I was older.
In my 30s, I started noticing it was a problem at work. I would attend talks that didn't have microphones, and I wouldn't be able to hear the speaker when everyone else could. My office-mate and I sit back to back, and when he talks to me, sometimes I can't hear him until he turns around. I notice I can always hear better when I have my glasses on, which means I'm relying on lip-reading.
My father was quite deaf. In his case, he had an organic reason for it. He had a pituitary tumor removed from behind his eyes when he was in his 30s. They radiated the remains of it by aiming the radiation beam through his middle ear, and they essentially fried his ears. He hated his hearing aids. They were uncomfortable, and had horrid feedback screeching, and they didn't help enough to give him good hearing. Since he was so unhappy with his hearing aids, I resisted doing anything about getting aids myself. I did get a hearing test about a decade ago. The audiologist told me I had some hearing loss, but that it wasn't that bad, and I could get a hearing aid if I wanted to. With that lukewarm response, I was quite content not to do anything.
But this year, I had enough. In January, I went for another test, and brought the results of the last test with me. This time, the audiologist said I had lost 50db of hearing in the last decade, and she thought I really should give hearing aids a try. The newer models don't have the feedback problem my father experienced, and they are very small and lightweight. She fitted me for Widex Dream 330 hearing aids, and set the volume at level 1 (of four levels). The volume is set in software, so I am not able to adjust it myself. She told me that there would be an adjustment period as my brain learned to deal with the heightened volume, and learned how to screen out unimportant noise. I remember living near a fire station in my 20s, and how the sirens used to wake me up out of a sound sleep at first, but how I quickly learned to sleep through it and not even notice them when they went off during the day. I understood how the hearing training could work.
But that first day was misery. Everything was so loud! My car sounded like it was breaking down; it was making a strange hissing noise I had never heard it make before. (Later, my office-mate would listen to it and tell me it was normal; I had just never heard that frequency before.) I drove from the audiologist's office to work, only to discover that everyone's voices were so loud they made me flinch, and the toilet flush was agonizing, and the ventilation fan in my office made it sound like I was in a wind tunnel. By the end of the day, my ears were ringing and I had a headache.
I sent email to the audiologist pleading for help. (I certainly didn't want to talk to anyone on the telephone if I didn't have to!) She reminded me that this was part of training my brain, and try to stick with it until our appointment the following week. I did try, but I had to confess when I saw her at our appointment that I had been popping them out while at my desk, to avoid the wind tunnel ventilation noise. I also was having trouble keeping them in my ear; even just walking around, the body movement would jostle them out of place. She made an adjustment to quiet the fan frequency, and added a little plastic gizmo to keep them from popping out.
Both those adjustments made a world of difference! My office was quieter, and the aids were staying in place. When I returned in two weeks, my brain training was going well, and the sound level was manageable. She was able to bump up the volume to level 2, and even though I noticed that things were louder, they were not uncomfortably loud like they had been those first few weeks. This is where where I am now in my brain training. I'm still quite overjoyed to take them off when I am alone, as they make my ear canals a little itchy. But people do notice that I can hear better, and I took a two-day class at work with a soft-spoken teacher, and was able to hear him very well. Next week is my next appointment, and I'm guessing she'll bump me to level 3.
Anyway, I'm basically writing this to encourage you to give hearing aids a try, if you need them. If you're missing out on conversation and you are frustrated by your limitations, it might be something that will improve your quality of life. I wish I had not let my father's poor experience, and the expense, keep me from trying it so long myself. I can't deny they are very expensive; mine cost more than $5,000 and they are not covered under health insurance. But I do have a year to pay them off, and it's an interest-free plan, so that helps a lot.
Since my last name starts with an A, I always ended up assigned a front row seat in the alphabetically ordered grade school and high school classrooms. In college, I could sit where I wanted, so I would sit wherever I needed to sit in order to hear. I really don't remember my hearing loss impacting my life much until I was older.
In my 30s, I started noticing it was a problem at work. I would attend talks that didn't have microphones, and I wouldn't be able to hear the speaker when everyone else could. My office-mate and I sit back to back, and when he talks to me, sometimes I can't hear him until he turns around. I notice I can always hear better when I have my glasses on, which means I'm relying on lip-reading.
My father was quite deaf. In his case, he had an organic reason for it. He had a pituitary tumor removed from behind his eyes when he was in his 30s. They radiated the remains of it by aiming the radiation beam through his middle ear, and they essentially fried his ears. He hated his hearing aids. They were uncomfortable, and had horrid feedback screeching, and they didn't help enough to give him good hearing. Since he was so unhappy with his hearing aids, I resisted doing anything about getting aids myself. I did get a hearing test about a decade ago. The audiologist told me I had some hearing loss, but that it wasn't that bad, and I could get a hearing aid if I wanted to. With that lukewarm response, I was quite content not to do anything.
But this year, I had enough. In January, I went for another test, and brought the results of the last test with me. This time, the audiologist said I had lost 50db of hearing in the last decade, and she thought I really should give hearing aids a try. The newer models don't have the feedback problem my father experienced, and they are very small and lightweight. She fitted me for Widex Dream 330 hearing aids, and set the volume at level 1 (of four levels). The volume is set in software, so I am not able to adjust it myself. She told me that there would be an adjustment period as my brain learned to deal with the heightened volume, and learned how to screen out unimportant noise. I remember living near a fire station in my 20s, and how the sirens used to wake me up out of a sound sleep at first, but how I quickly learned to sleep through it and not even notice them when they went off during the day. I understood how the hearing training could work.
But that first day was misery. Everything was so loud! My car sounded like it was breaking down; it was making a strange hissing noise I had never heard it make before. (Later, my office-mate would listen to it and tell me it was normal; I had just never heard that frequency before.) I drove from the audiologist's office to work, only to discover that everyone's voices were so loud they made me flinch, and the toilet flush was agonizing, and the ventilation fan in my office made it sound like I was in a wind tunnel. By the end of the day, my ears were ringing and I had a headache.
I sent email to the audiologist pleading for help. (I certainly didn't want to talk to anyone on the telephone if I didn't have to!) She reminded me that this was part of training my brain, and try to stick with it until our appointment the following week. I did try, but I had to confess when I saw her at our appointment that I had been popping them out while at my desk, to avoid the wind tunnel ventilation noise. I also was having trouble keeping them in my ear; even just walking around, the body movement would jostle them out of place. She made an adjustment to quiet the fan frequency, and added a little plastic gizmo to keep them from popping out.
Both those adjustments made a world of difference! My office was quieter, and the aids were staying in place. When I returned in two weeks, my brain training was going well, and the sound level was manageable. She was able to bump up the volume to level 2, and even though I noticed that things were louder, they were not uncomfortably loud like they had been those first few weeks. This is where where I am now in my brain training. I'm still quite overjoyed to take them off when I am alone, as they make my ear canals a little itchy. But people do notice that I can hear better, and I took a two-day class at work with a soft-spoken teacher, and was able to hear him very well. Next week is my next appointment, and I'm guessing she'll bump me to level 3.
Anyway, I'm basically writing this to encourage you to give hearing aids a try, if you need them. If you're missing out on conversation and you are frustrated by your limitations, it might be something that will improve your quality of life. I wish I had not let my father's poor experience, and the expense, keep me from trying it so long myself. I can't deny they are very expensive; mine cost more than $5,000 and they are not covered under health insurance. But I do have a year to pay them off, and it's an interest-free plan, so that helps a lot.