I looked at my program paper thing and it looks like it’s set for 3db. I’m not sure if that may mean I need specific frequencies amplified more since my programming just got updated to match my Audiogram better. Or if that means maybe I hearing level has changed within the last few months which I doubt.
Of course I’m not a Phonak owner so I don’t know how Phonak is set up, but it makes sense that Phonak allows users to set their clicks between 1, 2 or 3 dB
Just for reference for Oticon users who are curious, Oticon similarly gives you 2 options, either 1 or 2.5 dB per click. You can also set the volume range as well. Below are a couple of screenshots for Oticon Genie 2 where you can set those parameters (see bottom part). One thing to mention is that the default volume level may not be in the middle. It may be more toward the right (like the 2.5 dB example below) if your hearing loss is heavy enough that you need a louder amplification. Therefore, you may not have enough reserve gain to go up from default as much as you can go down to 0 dB from default.
But back to @DeafAntifa 's excellent original point to the OP, if you’re new to hearing aids, don’t be afraid to use the volume buttons to adjust to hear more if not enough, or to hear less if too loud, until your next visit where you can get your HCP to fine tune the default level further to be just right for you. The details of how many dBs to increase or decrease are not as important as remembering to make the volume control your friend. I’m an experienced user, but to this day, I still fiddle with my volume control and turn it down so I don’t get overwhelmed in loud places, or turn it up so I can hear better.
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Volume control up (5 clicks) and down (5 clicks) is 2 dB each time. The newer Phonaks can be a max of +10dB or -10dB. Older Phonaks can be set at +10dB or -20dB.
On the software, you can raise or lower by the 1dB button or the 3dB button.
Does mean you can press the 1dB button 5 times and adjust that way as well.
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That makes more sense! I typically will put it 2-3 clicks up in average situations. I may just need to mess around with the custom programming levels.
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Louie
Priceless. Its commendable for having the nads to speak the truth about certain hearing healthcare professionals. My mindset has always been “some are incompetent or flying by seat of their pants” but LAZY hits the nail on the head. No offense to anyone so please refrain from calling security.
Tony
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Hi guys, so it’s been almost three months since this post and I’ve had the aids sent back to manufacturer for diagnosis. Aids were said to have microphone suspensions damaged on both and batteries were also damaged. They think that is why I was having the problem. I also had 3 adjustments after the repaired. I’m still unsure if it’s helping me. I mean I wear it everyday, I don’t miss it if I don’t have it on. I was standing in front of my friend the other day and still couldn’t understand her. I was sitting with my mom today and her phone was ringing in the room . My sister and I we both couldn’t hear it. Sister wasn’t wearing hearing aids only I did. I mean is it too much to think that with the help of hearing aids I should have been able to hear the phone ringing ? I’m starting to think maybe I’m expecting too much from hearing aids that leads to the thinking that it’s not helping me . There’s a lot of other times I still can’t hear too. I’m just confused.
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It’s so unusual to hear that someone would have such rotten luck with a pair of brand new hearing aids that were BOTH damaged in 2 different ways (mic damage and battery damage). But even more odd is that these 2 different types of damage happened the same on BOTH aids, what are the odds of that? What I mean is that if one aid has a mic damage and the other aid has a battery damage, that’d be more understandable. But for both brand-spacking new aids to have 2 identical types of damage on them. That’s a real head scratcher.
If you’ve had 3 adjustments by an HCP on the KNOWN good replacement aids and still can’t tell much difference between them, then there must be something else going on. What does your HCP say about all this? What further test has the HCP done to verify that you’re hearing a difference with the aids on? Surely you must have consulted with your HCP about these issues well before coming to the forum as a last resort.
Yes, I told my audiologist and she had me redo the hearing test to compared it with the ENT test ( I did worst on the test with the ENT compared to the first one I did with her ) there’s a small difference in mid range so she did tell me that she made changes there. She’s also not sure why It’s not working for me . She said that I’m above target when we were doing REM 🥹
Did she consult Oticon support to get suggestions from them to try out?
If your sister is of normal hearing and couldn’t help your mom’s phone ringing, then I’m not sure your hearing aids would help make you hear better than your sister’s normal hearing anyway. Perhaps your mom’s ring volume is set to a very soft level to begin with. But you need to have the expectation that while the hearing aids may help you hear better, it’s not going to help you hear better than what a normal hearing person can hear. At best you should just have the expectation (and hope) that you can hear better than without them, but never as good as normal anymore. So I think that you may be right that you might have set your expectation for your hearing aids too high.
You do have moderate hearing loss at mid to high frequencies, though. So at the very least, when listening to music via a good set of speakers, you should be able to do A/B comparison by turn on/off the hearing aids (or take them out and put them back in) and be able to discern “some” difference. At least you should hear higher frequency sounds from the music a little more clear. If not then something is wrong and you should go back to your HCP and do some more of this kind of testing in front of them so they can make more adjustment for you.
As for normal everyday situation, maybe the difference is more discernable when you’re in a noisy place and try to listen to people talking. If you’re at home where it’s more quiet and not noisy, you probably can’t tell much of a difference. So try to find noisy places to go to and do A/B comparison test (by simply turn on/off the hearing aids) and listen on the fly to see if you can hear a difference.
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IMO, you need a different audiologist. I waited 3 years with my first pair of hearing aids to change audiologists. I waited far too long. When my hearing aids were properly fitted, it was like night and day.
In my case, I went to a university hearing clinic, figuring that they teach this stuff so they should know it as well as anyone and should employ best practices. I was scheduled with one of the professors, who was excellent.
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I find it extremely hard to believe that you don’t notice a single bit of difference. We have a very similar loss and hearing aids is the difference between understanding and hearing speech or not for me.
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Hi, My sister has same level of hearing loss like me but not wearing hearing aids so I was expecting to be able to hear the ringing. I thought I would be able to hear it with my hearing aids on. I mean I’m not sure if it’s too much to expect. My mom definitely heard it loud and clear. i also working at a restaurant during weekend where it’s actually not too busy . im a cashier and i check people out . a lof of time i cant understand what they are saying or when they are trying to talk to me. i hear them mumble. im thinking about asking her for a different brand new pairs to try. i dont know if its ok. in my last appointment, she decreases the some of brightness she said maybe my problem is due to too much brightness/ sharpness because some words sounded different to me, like it didn’t sound like how it should . Like the word test sounded like something else to my ears. She said too much brightness can distort the sounds . still no improvement though. 🥹
I know right. I can only notice difference in things like fan, chair creeking and AC sounds With speech understanding I don’t think so. 🥹 people at work keep asking me if I’m wearing hearing aids when I ask them to repeat. They say “ you’re wasting $6k”.
I assume the emphasis in what you said above is different “brand” to try, not another “brand new” pair of Real 1 to try. I think it’s a reasonable request since you’ve had no success with the Oticon brand so far. If I were your audi and I were customer-focused enough to make sure my client is successful, I would let you try another brand like Phonak or Widex maybe. I’m surprised that at this point, she hasn’t proposed for you to try out another brand yet. I wouldn’t hesitate to ask her. You have nothing to lose for asking. You should be more assertive in telling her that you’ve tried in earnest to give the Real 1 plenty of chances to succeed, but it’s just not doing it for you. The next logical step that’s even obvious to YOU is to try another brand to see. So your audi as a professional should even see this option before you do and suggest it to YOU already.
I meant to ask for another brand new oticon real 1 to try because I’m assume maybe this pair is not working properly 🥹. Audi also did wanted to let me try on phonak but i said no because i like how the oticon sounds. i like how natural it sounds. Last time I tried on phonak for a few minutes when I was in the office and didn’t like it. I’ll should just probably try phonak for longer period this time
Since you’ve already gotten another brand new replacement pair of Real 1, I must assume that the replacement pair is working fine because your audi has done everything to verify this new replacement pair. I assume that she also did very basic checks like examine your ears for wax blockage or things like that.
You never replied on my question about trying to do A/B comparison on listening to the music through a good set of speakers with wearing the Real vs not wearing the Real and see if you can hear a difference. This should be an easy and very quick sanity check rather than keep trying out new replacement pairs, which is a much more involved process, although I can’t blame you for not having much faith anymore after the first brand new pair of Real 1 failed spectacularly on you for no reason.
If you can hear a noticeable improvement when you do the A/B comparison on a music listening test, then at least you can tick off the box that the second pair of Real 1 here seems to be doing something for you. Then perhaps it’s an issue with your brain hearing perception in sorting out the sound, particularly with speech, that needs to be focused on next.
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Hi, so my speaker just arrived today. I ordered it to do the A/B comparison test like you have suggested. But what is A/B comparison? Like what does the A/B stands for ?
She didn’t give me the brand new real 1 when the first real was diagnosed with issues. She just sent them back to manufacturer and had them repaired she gave them back to me after like 2 weeks. That’s why I’m kinda thinking maybe they’re not properly fixed and maybe there’s more issues to it.
A/B comparison simply means that you play the same music on the same speaker at the same volume in 2 different scenarios. Sorry, it’s kind of an engineering thing, and because I’m an engineer, I presume that it’d be obvious to everybody, but apparently it’s not.
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Scenario A → listen to the music without the hearing aids on via the speaker. Note that we’re not talking about streaming music from a smart phone or whatever device to the hearing aids directly here. You’re playing music from whatever device you choose to the speaker, then you listen to how the music sound directly from the speaker, through the air to your ears.
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Scenario B → next, listen to the music with the hearing aids on. Preferably on the same song that you just listened to in scenario A. Does it sound better with the hearing aids on? Specifically, do you notice more high frequency sounds from the music? If yes, then as a sanity check, this is implying that your hearing aids is working and amplifying your hearing loss in the high frequency area and that’s why you can hear the music sound better in this scenario B.
You can switch back and forth between scenario A and B as many times as you like, maybe play different songs of different types, etc, until you’re sure that scenario B with the hearing aids on makes the music sound better. Specifically, it should be brighter, more treble, richer, fuller, and not dull like without the hearing aids.
The reason for trying to do this with music is that usually music is much richer than just speech or normal every day sounds. The normal every day sounds or speech may not have enough of the high frequency sounds that you can’t hear as well on, so in those cases, you can’t really tell whether the hearing aids are helping you that much or not because those normal sounds may dwell mostly in the low and mid frequency range where you don’t have a hearing loss. But with music, especially full and rich music, it should be much more obvious whether the hearing aids are amplifying the high frequency sounds in the music for you like it’s supposed to or not.
Thank you for explaining. What sounds are considered high frequency? Like when I do the test what should I try to focus on ? Understanding the lyrics right?