Chronicle of a first time hearing aid user

Hearing Aids
#9

Day #2

My first full day with hearing aids. The ear grip annoyance seems to have disappeared already, so that’s good. I’m not sure how functional they are though, as my left aid keeps sliding out slightly, leaving about a 1/2” gap between my ear and receiver wire. I keep pushing it in every half hour or so, but it quickly slides out again.

Sound wise, I’m still undecided about the results in the office. Staff voices seem very loud, but childrens voices still seem softer than I thought they would be. Our office aur conditioner is vrey annoying with it’s background whirring. I thought it’s constant noise would hav ebeen a good candidate for noise cancellation, but it doesn’t seem so. The crinkling and sliding of papers around my desk is also something new to get used to, but it’s not annoying.

The big disappointment of the day is the telecoil on my desk phone. It activates fine, but if I move the phone even slightly out of place, it de-activates again. Plus the voice volume is very low, but worst of all, there is a horrible background static constantly that makes using the telecoil virtuall impossible.

I have just telecoil set on my right ear, but mic & t-coil on the left. When I use the left ear, and hold it so the t-coil doesn’t activate (which is an askward position), I’m surprised how well just the mic pickup works. But once again, it swaps in & out of telecoil mode woth the slightest change in position, and with a couple seconds delays between swaps, it’s playing havoc with having a proper phone conversation.

I have to get to my audi ASAP and see if I can get the configuration changed so I can use my phone properly. I’m thinking I may just have to try for a bluetooth setup instead, but that means spending significant money on getting a ConnectClip and dealing with the uncertainty of whether it will work for me or not.

Technically, I didn’t stream any video yesterday, so haven’t seen if I am still getting the annoying click click click sounds I got first night from what may be apple watch interference. Also I did the iOS 12.1 update last night on my phoen and ipad, which who knows what variables may have been changed. More testing required.

I am a little confused with the On app volume settings. I have -8 steps to lower the volume, each which seems to make a change, and only +2 steps to increase volume, but they don’t seem to change anything. I’m not sure if this is because I’m on a low initial setting, increasing volume is disabled, or I’m just not detecting the increase.

Overall I’m fairly happy with things so far. Need more time to tell if the aids are really helping me that much or not, but at least no drastic problems. Waking up on Day #3, I haven’t experienced the overnight phantom earplug feeling again, so hopefully I’ve adapted to that… maybe I’m a Borg??

#10

This is great reading. Thanks. I’m only shy a couple years into my use.
Telecoil: yeah…back in the day the phone handset used to be this honkin’ big magnet held up to your ear. Now…not.
Adjustments can be made to the telecoil program too.
I think now the telecoil is more useful for hearing loops.

#11

Yeah, but not sure they’ll fix the static. I saw some very old threads mentioning static in telecoil, with no solutions, just that some places work, some don’t. I’ll still leave the option on my left ear, just my right is primary and only has the telecoil option currently. So I’ll get them swapped, and still be able to experiment with my left ear to see if I can identify the source, and also handset placement, when it’s not so crucial to actual hearing the phone conversation.

#12

I had the same problem. I wore an 8mm dome on both sides for two days. It kept slipping out on the right side. I went in the third day and switched to a 10mm on the right side and the problem was solved.

#13

Custom molds, most definitely. You’ll be glad you did it.

#14

Check out this thread.

#15

I’ll have a look tonight when I’m home, at the thread, but my first thoughts are it’s a bit early days to consider, and I’m guessing there’s a considerable expense both intiially and longer term?

#16

A larger dome is a cheap fix if it works

#17

Oh, one other thing is forgot to mention on day 3. I can home from work with a headache. Now there’s lot of reasons to get headaches, but I don’t get them very often. So I wonder if it’s just coincidence, or something about my new setup is confusing my brain?

#18

Regarding headache. Wearing hearing aids for the first time is tiresome. I’m guessing it’s from being assaulted with so much new sound. It’s ok to work up to a full day of wearing them, or take a break from them.

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#19

From what I understand, they usually run around $40 each. My audi provided them for free. They should last you the life of the aids, but I did break one once and had to purchase the replacement.

#20

Day #3

So an emergency call to my Audi and she fit me in between other patients at short notice for a change of phone program. I swapped my main ear to Mic only, not telecoil. Unfortunately I had problem still for the day, until finally last thing, I figured if I hold the earpiece of the phone way up high on my head and out at a large angle from my head, the mic pickup seemed to be pretty good. However, it was still detecting the phone speaker as an autophone cue and chiming in an out of the phone mode during the conversation, which was very bad.

I can’t live without an easy to use phone at work, so bit the bullet and ordered a bluetooth setup of the MDA220, BT300 and ConnectClip. Hopefully it’ll all arrive sometime next week and hopefully the bluetooth quality and ConnectClip will provide a satisfactory solution. In the meantime, I’ll have to persist with looking like I’m trying to blow my brains out with my telephone.

The ear grips were a little annoying on occasion again today, so I guess it just depends on how I position them at the start of the day. I’m sure I’ll be able to get them into a comfortable position all the time with a bit of practice. The audi did say they generally bend to match you ear shape after a bit anyway.

The left ear is still backing out a bit. It only goes a little way then stops, so it’s not a big issue apart from the cosmetics of the wire sticking out a bit, although I do feel I have to keep pushing it back in. I’ll just persevere until my proper follow up appointment in a couple weeks probably, and discuss then. I did look at the custom mould thread recommended, and am not convinced it’s the prefect solution. Seemed as many people had issues with custom molds as without, although some are happy with them. I don’t need any extra expense at the moment, so will look at other solutions first.

I had no real issues with sound during the day. The air conditioner on the wall in front of my desk is still noisy. Also, when outside in some wind, I do get some wind noise across the microphones when facing away from the wind direction. Was fairly easy to avoid, but I can see it being a little bothersome down the road when the real windy weather starts.

I spent some time streaming from my iPad after dinner. I only had the ‘tap tap tap’ interference briefly once as I was putting my Apple Watch on it’s charge stand for the night, much better than the previous night when it was happening regularly. I can’t say if the ios 12.1 update was a factor as I didn’t have enough previous data points. I’ll continue to monitor.

I must say though, having only used corded earbuds previously, the freedom of moving around cord free was very enjoyable. So much so that when it was finally time to go to bed, I was actually regretting having to take my aids out. I see that as a very good sign that I have become accustomed to them very quickly. I was expecting weeks of discomfort while I became accustomed. Only thing is the loss of bass tones in music does spoil the listening experience slightly. I may revisit bass domes when I next see my audi.

Funny thing, on the first day in the office, I didn’t mention I had my aids, and was waiting for someone to make a comment all day, but no one did. Then today, since I had to leave the office during work hours to see the audiologist, I had to let my work partner know I had to go out, and she was surprised to hear I was wearing them, as she hadn’t noticed. I was surprised, as to me that left wire sticking out seemed to make me look like a martian with his antenna coming out of his ear. Later in the day I had to discuss purchasing the bluetooth add-ons for the phone with my boss, and she was also surprised to hear I had them in, as she too had not noticed them. I thought they were just trying to be polite not saying anything, especially as most them them approach me from behind, and I have no hair, and I have two different coloured aids, so was sure they would see the aids behind my ears. Apparently not. So even though I’m trying to make them stand out, people still don’t notice! Maybe I need to affix some flashing LED’s on them, kind of like aircraft landing lights…

So, it’s now the morning of day of Day #4. I was considering now wearing my aids for the weekend, as it’s just a quiet weekend at home, but I’m enjoying streaming music, and also was to have a full run of daily use to see exactly how long the batteries will last with moderate streaming. So I have them in, have the tunes playing, and enjoying a not-as-quiet-as-it-used-to-be-in-a-good-way weekend at home.

#21

The only people who walk around staring at everyone’s ears are audiologists. Even sometimes watching movies I catch myself thinking, “That’s a good ear for a hearing aid.”

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#22

I’m lucky enough that my HA’s, even with a “Sports Lock” springy, pointy thingy poking me if I try to lodge it in my ear, don’t cause any real sensation and I often catch myself reflexively about to scratch an ear and snag a wire forgetting that I am wearing HA’s.

But my theory of life is when young, everyone should run cross-country to learn about living with discomfort, sometimes even pain, and endurance. Then when old (where we’re all headed, hopefully!), we’re going to most likely have a bit of that to look forward to. My father lived to be 91 and was relatively healthy 'til the end. When I asked him what it was like (he was an M.D.), he said it was a progressive accumulation of small discomforts and to deal with the accumulated panoply every day took a bit of fortitude. I am starting to follow his route although I’d be amazed if I live anywhere near as long as he did. In discussing aches and pains with the wife (also an M.D.), she said in the midst of the opiod epidemic, an actual MD-recommended strategy for managing pain and discomfort is for the mind to say to itself, “Yes. A part of my body is telling me it aches or it is in pain but that’s just a generated sensation. I can learn to ignore it if I want to.”

I don’t mean to minimize anyone’s discomfort with HA’s. Everyone should fix or avoid any discomfort or pain that they can. Russ’s remark is just an excuse to bring up the idea of trying to psychologically manage pain and discomfort in your mind, and it may be something many of us have to deal with, stuff more serious than HA discomfort, if we live to ripe old ages.

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#23

How wonderfully captured.

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#24

My dad was a pretty laconic guy who kept his thoughts mostly to himself, dispensing words of advice only occasionally-but it’s his words that I’m ~quoting. As kids are, I didn’t really appreciate the wisdom of anything he had to say as much as I should have at the time. But as those little small discomforts begin to add up for myself now, I am more appreciative of the advice that he had to offer on a number of things, aging included!

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#25

Day #6

So I didn’t keep to my plan of wearing the aids all weekend, as I was working in the yard, so had them off Saturday afternoon & Sunday. Back to work today though.

First problem was my partner in the office was away today. This meant I was left answering all the phone calls. I lasted about 3 hours before finally calling it quits and taking out my aids for the rest of the day. The right (mic only) side was just too quiet, and kept bing-bonging in and out of Autophone mode. The left side telecoil pickup was good volume, but the background static just drowned out the conversation (plus it also kept bing-bonging that side too).

The other thing that was annoying me today was the constant background hiss from the airconditioner in front of me. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that one. Maybe I’ll learn to ignore it. I don’t think I have another option. When I muted my aids, the hiss blissfully disappeared, but that sort of defeats the purpose.

It feels like two steps backwards today. At least I managed to order all the bluetooth gear for the phone, but it’ll probably be a week before it arrives.

We’ve moved into a mini heatwave too, with the temperature today at 35C (95F) and predicted to be higher for the rest of the week. I’m in a/c at work, but none at home, so could be a stress test for the aides too when I get back to wearing them.

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#26

I hope you ran cross-country when you were young! :slightly_smiling_face: - or maybe playing rugby would do it!

#27

Can you get a partition to put between you and the AC that at least blocks some of the sound coming directly at you but still allows room air circulation, such as if you were sitting below an open-top cubicle wall covered with absorbent material? Or otherwise rearrange your desk wrt to AC? Maybe it won’t be as loud if you were facing in a different direction, etc., ? Or if it’s a particularly noisy air conditioner to begin with, maybe the school would replace it. The cost in lost productivity must far exceed the cost of an air conditioning unit if it’s a wall unit.

#28

I’m thinking your audi should be able to tune out the AC noise.