First hearing aids and tinnitus

Oh yeah - since my WRS is low in quiet, and quickSIN catastrophic (with aids in in LACE I ‘scored’ 19 :woman_facepalming:) one marvel/paradise cannot utilize ultra zoom.
So that was one reason. Another was streaming - to get the similar sound at the same time and of the similar loudness. Also roger mics.
I definitely have better comprehension with both, even when test of WRS in quiet was the same with one or two aids, better than bad ear alone, but worse than good ear alone. My good ear is 100% on 60db, but with two ears (bad aided, good aided or not), it fails down to I think 80.

But we didn’t do crazy extensive tests. I mean, they’d be just for my curiosity…

But I feel it in real life, like, I don’t need people now to be on my normal side when walking, aids also transfer some sound around… And I struggle less in noisy environment compared to one aid, or no aid.

I mean, no aid is ok when someone is on my good side and close, but noise enters from both sides and my brain doesn’t like it.
If I plug the bad ear then it’s better, but I then feel shadow effect, that ‘void of sound’.

So main reason is to use any help possible and make my brain’s job less hard, and that part I definitely feel the difference. I now really enjoy listening tv and it’s fun, and not rely on looking at it / reading subs or just missing half of things. No wonder I could watch the same movie twice after a few months and be genuinely surprised second time about who was the killer, since I don’t remember, probably since I didn’t hear half of it anyway :rofl:

Tinnitus is somewhat lower if I wear aids shorter. At least that’s my impression. I didn’t try without wearing them for a day. I really like streaming :rofl:

So, yeah, two aids for me + select = huge improvement in quality of life, even though my bad ear is bad and for example I’d really struggle on the phone even with friends if I’d have to use only that one, aided. Any stranger would be mission impossible. Unaided is unusable for normal everyday things.

And bg music doesn’t help much with tinnitus, I’ve tried a bunch of stuff, frogs, cicadas, water, fans, white noise and such, it’s okish when I read something, but I think it’s mostly because I’m focused on reading, but to fall asleep nope, I actually feel like it wakes me up… :rofl:
Although, my good ear behaves weird last day/two, like plugged a bit, I hear funny noise sometimes when I swallow. Hearing test looks fine (better than in November, so I don’t have any worries), my nose is stuffed from dry air so that might affect everything. Like, I tried listening late baroque and I had to pull out my headphone almost entirely because otherwise I’d hear my heartbeat-tinnitus, in good ear. Irritating. In quiet with aids, I didn’t notice heartbeat effect.

Yeah I know, go to ENT, but let’s say that I have a problem - I don’t have any reliable one, I have some I consider bad, so I definitely don’t trust them with their diagnosis or treatment. Google and similar reviews aren’t helpful either. So I hope it will pass :rofl:
Ha, good thing that I have programming sw and could do hearing test to check if everything is ok (compared to those at ENTs, mine is accurate :unamused: you’d think that clicking on a few buttons wouldn’t be THAT hard, but they managed to surprise me)

But this tinnitus on good ear is definitely here since early December?, so after cca 3 months of wearing both aids. Before that was only on the bad ear and also started after a 2 months or so of wearing that one.

Can’t say that I hear it when aids are in, even when sitting in quiet, but you know, quiet often isn’t quiet, like fridge humming and so. Maybe if I focus hard I might hear it in the bad ear even with aid on in really quiet.
But aids out, and party starts in a matter of seconds. But only in real quiet, not in fridge quiet.
When I lie down. Maybe it’s connected…

Mostly by time to wake up on good ear I don’t hear it, on bad ear I do until I get up.
Maybe it’s about blood flow?

I know that all sounds we hear are considered tinnitus, but it’s just that I’m wondering if this is really tinnitus or could be something else. Don’t know, blood pressure going crazy with slight differences + general excitement of the cochlea due to wear of HAs even though I don’t feel it.

I never had any issues in my life due to loud music on concerts, eg never had ringing like many people do. At most I’d hear less and it would return in normal by morning. I probably was at around only 20 of them, and not always, and last one was probably 5+ years before my sudden loss. But now when I’m thinking about it, I have a feeling that beside ‘everything is quiet’ I might have this similar permanent fridge humming for a while back then. That’s why I thought if maybe HAs really could be too loud or something…

I don’t recall any issues on good side with headphones and streaming before I started with aids on good side. But that doesn’t mean something couldn’t change.
Except on concerts, I actually listen my music and stuff pretty quiet. But since these two aids are here, I started somewhat louder because I realised that I could understand better :rofl:

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