First message and first time soon to be hearing aids user. I have known for a long time I have struggled with hearing, I thought it was from working in kennels with 100’s of dogs. Had a hearing test yesterday and turns out I have Cookie bite hearing loss… Audiologist has recommended HA’s. I am currently looking at the Advance Elite and wondered if anyone with similar hearing loss has any experienced of them. Also what are the risks if not having HA’s? Given I have gone this long without them? I am 51.
Welcome to the hearing tracker. And hello from a fellow cookie bite hearing loss person. Well for me at 77 years young i am now also losing my high frequency hearing. I have been wearing aids for 20 years.i was told when I first got hearing aids that a cookie bite hearing loss can be a challenge to adjust for. And only in the last 5 or 6 years as I am losing my high frequencies has my audiologist been able to really adjust my aids so i can comfortably understand speech. You need an experienced audiologist and both you and the audiologist has to have patience of steel. I have been on this forum since I believe 2009 or 2010 and I am here to help where I can.
Thank you for taking the time to reply, yes feeling it’s going to be challenging for us both I am glad they HA’s have free trails. I guess I just have to see what
Welcome and congratulations on finding one door for self discovery and betterment.
You are a lucky young man. Wish I had your fine hearing.
I been wearing aids since way before I was your age.
Technology and resources like this forum, are wonderful benefits that can serve you well into the future.
Your post must be read with some satisfaction by the men who have till now only their wives to blame for their hearing loss… but you bring up dogs - grrrrrr! .
My view here is purely my own… do not interpret it as being supported by any facts!
(facts seem to be on the way out… if I interpret the daily news correctly), but to answer your question…
I DO recommend use of two hearing aids for a number of reasons.
Firstly, they will keep your awareness of sound, and your skill in interpreting sound, sharper, than if you recede into the enveloping silence and in essence tune out.
Secondly, it can take a while to get comfortable with and be second nature handling them… just the insertion, removal, operation, buttons, slides, levers, all that stuff and also knowing what they don’t have… so as you get to be my old age… you will be comfortable with them.
There is a lot of press out now that failure to stimulate your hearing… can in some way lessen your cognitive acuity. Maybe. Not sure how much of that is real vs hype.
Possibly there is conflicting research on this… but claims of this nature are being used to drive investment into hearing aids.
IF you wear your hearing aids constantly and at high but not painful levels, I personally find that without them, I then really have less ability to hear, as I have gotten used to the hearing aids.
I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing.
BTW - if you are interested - this is one of the best deep dive into the fitting process, that I have come across… not sure where is a collection of like references - but this is a nice presentation
Hi @Kimbo as others have mentioned cookie bite can be quite a complex fitting procedure. Are they Specsavers aids? If so ask if they will be able to afford you the time required to get a fitting that suits your needs.
Do what I do! I have journaled since I was 7 years old. For my aids and adjustments I keep journal entries for the good, the bad, and what I would like to have happen. I email my audiologist a week before my appointment so he has a record of my issues, concerns and wishes. He comes to my appointment with solutions at hand. It makes my appointment go smoother and more gets done without additional appointments. I have been working with my audiologist for about 7 years now and it works great
Hi, I have been wearing HAs for about six years now. I started off with NHS ones which were a big improvement on my normal hearing. Due to poor Bluetooth issues I decided to go down the private route with Specsavers. I also went with the Elite. The first pair I had were white label Signia and I wasn’t that impressed. They were better but not two grand better. Particular issues were speech in noisy environments. I switched to the Phonak white label version based on the Phonak Lumity. These were a significant step up, but still had problems with speech in noisy environments. I went out for a meal with my other half and son and played about with the Restraunt settings. I could not clearly hear my wife who was sat in front of me, or my son who was sat to my right hand side (my worse hearing). I could however hear the conversation of the couple on the table behind us as clear as anything. This led my to the conclusion that the Phonak method of reducing background noise was better than the Signia, in my honest opinion. I then did a ton of research and received a lot of advice on this forum and took the plunge on the Phonak Infino Sphere. Another grand more but it is the latest technology. I have been wearing them for a couple of weeks now but haven’t had the chance to test them in a noisy environment, but all the other functionality is great. A lot depends on which sort of situations you are in most, what is important to you and your particular hearing loss which is different to mine. A lot of mine is at the higher frequencies. One thing I would say, is that you are not happy about something, tell Specsavers and keep telling them until you are happy. Good luck on your HA journey
Hi, I also have cookie bite. I first found out about it in my twenties but managed fine until I was 48. Then a combination of normal age related loss, mask wearing and severe tinnitus started to impact my ability to take part in conversations and was causing frustration with my family. I got HA, also the Advanced Elite but I’m in Australia so it depends which country you are in what this actually means. Mine are rebadged signias. Be prepared that there is a steep adjustment curve with HAs. The more you wear them the faster you’ll adjust. I wore mine sixteen hours a day from the get go and it still took around six months for things to sound ‘normal’. I love my HAs now and would not be without them. For me the link between dementia and hearing loss was a big motivator. I now realise how hard my brain was working with the limited information I was getting before. Best of luck with your hearing journey!
Thank you I have been wearing them for 2 days now and don’t think I realised how bad my hearing was until I wore them. My speech understanding has improved a lot, was in a really busy office today and managed. The background noise is a struggle as it noises I wouldn’t normally hear and that is a lot. My partner also speaks very loud, people in work also tell him that, turns out in the 15 years we have been together he has upped his volume to a level he knows I can hear as I was always telling him to stop mumbling and I couldn’t hear what he was saying! How poo do I feel now
