Hello everyone!
First of all thank you to everyone who posts on here, the information and support given is invaluable! Thank you so much! So my post is probably going to be long, but here it goes…
I’ve failed hearing buses all throughout childhood because of a multitude of ear infections as a child, and was finally fitted with hearing aids at 24 years old. My first audiogram from 2012 looked like this:
----250 500 1000 2000 4000 8000
L - 20—20—25—35—5---15
---------15—25—35—5---15 <— Bone Conduction
R - 35—40—60—50—15—15
---------15—60—50—15—15 <— Bone Conduction
Bone conduction was pretty close. Unaided Recognition Score L - 88% 72dB and masking 70dB R - 92% 62dB and masking 70dB. Completed by a private audiologist. I was fitted with bilat. resound hearing aids. Which are pretty awesome!
Within the next year, I went back to my audiologist because I was having trouble understanding women talking to me and my tinnitus had gotten much worse. He changed some configurations on my hearing aids and the problems are now resolved! I wanted another hearing test but he says he does them every two years and he doesn’t think my hearing is any worse so it is not needed.
I was curious though and got a hearing test at Costco because I believe my hearing had gotten worse. The next audiogram looked like this:
----250 500 1000 2000 4000 8000
L - 25—20—30—40—20—5
----------0—10—50—5 <— Bone Conduction
R - 45—40—55—50—25—20
-----------0—10—40—0 <— Bone Conduction
Unaided Recognition Score L - 100% 70dB no masking R - 98% 75dB no masking.
Well, I’m not a doctor so I am very confused about these discrepancies in my audiograms. According to these audiograms my hearing has kind of gotten worse and kind of gotten better. Is this possible? And what is up with the bone conduction test? That definitely has changed. Recognition score is interesting too, could there be such a difference with and without masking? Are any of those scores on my latest audiogram considered a significant loss? Should I have my private audiologist complete a hearing test? What should I do? I think that’s all the questions I have for now. Thanks for the help, I truly appreciate it!