Hearing Loss & Aids

[janette]

My DH has some hearing loss, I've tried to tell him he needs to get it checked but he's never seemed interested. The other day he actually acted like he might consider it when I mentioned that I've heard hearing aids are much better designed than they used to be.

I know that one of my nephews has a digital aid that is supposed to help with the specific tones he doesn't hear well. My DH is also concerned with how large it would be.

Any success stories?

 

[momsgoofy]

No answer for you really except to say that there have been such advances in this area that it' amazing...I can say that the size of hearing aids has greatly improved...they can even hide inside the ear. I'm an interpreter and see all kinds of hearing aids...one person I know even has a set up that channels the sounds from the right ear to the hearing aid on the left where she has more residual hearing. You might want to post on the DISabilities board. I know TalkingHands might be able to provide some info or some of the other DISsers there.

I hope your husband finds something that works for him. My mom had bee told for most of her adult life there wasn't anything that would help her nerve deafness...she got her first hearing aids at almost 60 and it changed her life.

 

[golfgal]

I wear hearing aids-I got them when I was 30 years old. I wouldn't consider anything but digital. My old analog really didn't help that much compared to the digitals I have now. Hearing aids run from so small they fit in your ear and you can't see them at all to the big behind the ear ones. The smallest one are, of course, the most expensive. I have ones that fill the lower part of my ear (the second smallest size available) and unless I point them out, no one knows I have them. They were $5000 for the pair, the in the canal ones, the next size smaller would have been about $7500. The behind the ear ones are about $1000 for the pair.

It does take a while to get used to them because all of the sudden you hear a lot more then you had been hearing. Don't wear them home for the first time during a rain storm, NOT a good idea.

They aren't perfect, but they are well worth having. It might take a while to get them fit correctly, but once they are fit properly, you don't really notice that they are there.

About a year or so after I got my first hearing aides, I was walking around the neighborhood with the kids and an older man, probably close to 80 said hi to the kids so we stopped and talked with him for a while. He noticed I had hearing aids and asked about them. He said his kids had been trying for years to get him to get hearing aids but he thought they would make him look old . He decided since I was so young and I didn't look old with them, he would get them. That was really cute!

 

[chichihoney]

i wear hearing aides since i was in school i did send u a email two websites that will help u out all hearing aide have batteries which is diffent size and color sticker tabs.

 

[momsgoofy]

...It does take a while to get used to them because all of the sudden you hear a lot more then you had been hearing....

golfgal...how true!! You made me think of the first day Mom got her hearing aids...it was hilarious!! She got them at Washington School of Med in St. Louis...as she was walking down the hallway (those nice shiny tiled floors) to leave the office, she started to jump a little. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me the high heels from the women in front of us sounded like jackhammers... Then before we left, we stopped to use the womens restroom and Mom was laughing so hard when she came out of the stall that I asked her, "What?" She told me the toliet flushing sounded like Niagra Falls.

Thanks for reminding me of something that was a family joke for a while!

 

[Microcell]

My sisters have been deaf all thier lives, and one of them really benefits from them, the second some, and the third is not helped at all, but she has no hearing to work with. My closest sister uses analog and there is a difference in her speech tones when not wearing the aids, so I am pretty sure it helps her.

 

[minniepumpernickel]

He should get it checked, it could be a sympton of some other disorder. My mom has Menieres, which causes heaing loss. He'll probably feel better once he goes and gets it taken care of!

 

[albnsc]

I have been wearing hearing aids since i was 10 and am now 38 yo. About a year ago i was finialy able to afford good digital hearing aids. Octicon makes a nice entry level digital aid called " GO!" they cost me 2000.00 for the pair.
I love this pair. They can program digital hearing aids to compansate for ones uniique hearing loss. (mine is from a birth defect in the middle ear).
I have a hard time with low tones ie; mens voices. These aids make it a lot easier for me. If he has minimal loss he should be able to get small ones.
I wear the in the ear that can be seen. The only people that notice are ones who wear or know someone who wears hearing aids.
so tell him to go for it.