So, I’ve been on here for a few years, have had multiple hearing tests since 2016, and I think I need help.
Have been tested again yesterday, and have a pair of Phonak Spheres in order, due in 2 weeks. REM will be carried out also.
What should I expect in the first days and weeks as an experience, the good and the bad?
I gave up after a week on my first trial years ago, but hopefully tech is better now and the benefits may be more obvious for me.
I’m on my second trial of spheres so here’s my list
Good
Speech in noise - when activated I can follow group convos
General hearing - I can hear sounds that I couldn’t hear with my old phonaks, eg dogs barking in the distance and lots of other instances
Music - a much crisper and clearer sound
Charging - the charger has a battery for charging on the go
Myphonak app - good for adjusting programs and for consulting usage data
Android compatible but see below
Bad
I have to have the ringtone volume unmuted, unlike on my old phonaks
Damp - on my first trial I was golfing in the rain which caused one HA to produce white noise
Overall, I’m impressed and will be purchasing next week. Fortunately, I have located a super competent audiologist which is the most important factor.
@Teewens Would you say that your experience with Phonak Sphere has been/is Stratospheric !!! 
No. A bit better than my previous phonaks, especially for speech in noise. But the deal maker is having a good audiologist who will a) get me the best fitting and b) support me in DIY programming.
I was in your situation four months ago (first timer, Sphere I90). I recommend patience. It is likely that your audiologist will start you out at 80% of your prescription levels of gain to begin with - which is gradually increased automatically over the first few weeks to help your brain adapt to new inputs. Wear them as much of the day as you can to speed that process. Even so, you’ll likely find the sudden influx of higher frequencies to be jarring at first: everything from your shoes squeaking across the floor to the sound of your own voice to running water can seem harsh and tinny until your brain learns to ignore the information it doesn’t need for you to communicate. This can take several weeks or more, so: patience is a virtue, but your experience will improve. Those disconcerting effects receded within a couple of weeks for me, and my brain noticeably continued to adapt for several weeks more. Just don’t expect instant miracles or the aids to live up to the marketing hype at the very beginning of your experience.
In the early days I was constantly fiddling with the app, creating my own custom (and limited) updates of the settings available to the end-user, but as time went on and my brain adapted I increasingly found that the core Automatic settings - and the adjustments the aids themselves make based on your surroundings - were quite good for understanding speech in most situations and I’ve since deleted some of the “customized” settings I made in the initial weeks as no longer helpful.
Results and effectiveness can vary dramatically for things like streaming music or speech in loud noise depending on your specific “fitting” - the initial programming recommended for your specific hearing loss, the type of in-ear domes you’re given, the amount of outside world sound they let in, etc. Because the adjustability in the app is limited, be aware that your audiologist can do much, much more to fine tune how your hearing aids behave and improve your experience in situations that remain problematic for you - utilize their expertise and capabilities in follow-up visits after your brain’s initial adaptation. So, again, patience… don’t expect to instantly have the ears of a teenager, but don’t accept a disappointing experience without exhausting all the possibilities that the devices are capable of addressing through audiologist adjustment.
For me, it’s also important to remember that hearing aids are primarily designed to improve speech recognition - that’s the yardstick for measuring effectiveness, not necessarily the other things you use your ears for, like music (even though that experience can likely be improved too). Good luck!
You have a challenging loss. I assume you’ve seen an ENT to seek explanation for asymmetric hearing loss? Since you’ve been unaided I would guess that you’re going to have difficulty adjusting to increased volume of a lot of sounds you haven’t been hearing. Try to be patient. Depending on your initial reaction your audiologist may want to set gain lower than desired and set aids to gradually increase gain over time. If volume is really getting to you, it’s ok for you to turn it down some. Also initially it may be tiresome wearing the aids. It’s ok to gradually work up to wearing them for a full day. Keep us posted and let us know what challenges (and successes) you’re having.
Thanks for the guidance, I appreciate it.
Again, thank you, great guidance. Seems I have a lot of adapting to do. And will need patience.
Yes, I’ve had an MRI to rule out an acoustic neuroma.
As you say, and others have said, I have a few weeks / months of training my brain ahead it seems.
What’s going on with that right ear? Was it sudden loss? Meniere’s? I presume it’s not conductive–you haven’t been offered corrective surgery? What’s your word recognition like in that ear? How long has it been like that?
Things are probably going to sound sharp and weird in the left for a while, but in the long run it’s a pretty standard ear to fit. But the benefit on the right ear is a bit more of a question.
Well yes it was sudden. And I tried the steroids and all options.
I hadn’t been offered any surgery, nope. Happened in 2016.
I worry myself that boosting the right won’t help, my Word recognition is very low on the right. But I guess I can revert to a cros if needs be on tbe right within the 100 day trial.
11 years ago. Have you had a CI candidacy assessment? 11 years ago it might not have been an option, but it might be now.
I think it’s worth tryinga hearing aid on that side, but it might be tricky to tolerate much gain on that side. There’s no CROS compatible with the Sphere, unfortunately, so if you like the Sphere program you’d have to make a choice. You might find a Roger On useful.
They told me I’d not qualify for a CI actually. Said my hearing wasn’t bad enough.
What do you expect would happen to me with the gain in the right ear? Lots of distortion?
If they told you that in 2016 it might be worth checking again. Criteria have changed a bit.
Distortion, yes. You may find the degree of low frequency gain you need in that ear a bit difficult to tolerate. But if getting a little bit of gain even just between 1.5 and 3 kHz and to help you out, it would probably be worth wearing because you may be able to turn it up and get more benefit over time. You may find you want the volume disconnected so that you can adjust the ears separately.
Ah it was last November I was told it wouldn’t be for me.
I’m in Ireland, I suppose different criteria everywhere?
Yes, for sure.
…twenty character limit
Thanks a lot, I really appreciate your advice.
It’s intimidating and worrying taking first steps. Even today, as I can hear ok most of the time, I think, do I really need aids? But I’m sure I’m missing out on lots.
I do worry also how my right ear can be helped. Different audiologists I’ve been to seem to think crow, others say aid on the right. This is part of why I’ve held off so long, I wonder will I just be wasting my money if I go with the wrong opinion, and would a bd experience put me off.
I guess time will tell?
When you say volume disconnected, do you mean individual control per side? Is there a difference in volume and gain?
Yes, you really do. Speech access (SII) for your left ear at an average conversational level is 46%.
Just jump in, you have to start somewhere. Your clinician will walk you through everything. You need a left hearing aid no matter what, and that’s going to take a bit of work to adapt to. No hearing aid will be a waste of money for the left, any hearing aid will help. Try aiding the right, just be cognizant of your return period–talk that through with your clinician. If the right hearing aid doesn’t work out, you can return the system and try a CROS (unless you know right away that the sphere program is working really well for you) and then if the CROS doesn’t work out you can return and move back to the Sphere, maybe with a remote mic/Roger mic for support. First set of hearing aids can be a process, and that’s normal. Your clinician will be doing their best to set you up for success from the get-go, but particularly with a complex loss like yours they are probably also thinking ahead to different options.
Yes. Typically volume control will default to adjusting both ears together, but there’s an option to disconnect them so that the buttons on each ear work separately which is often helpful for individuals with a big asymmetry in hearing loss and/or clarity.
Not really. When I’m talking about gain. . . this is what your clinician is prescribing/setting up for you based on your hearing loss, specific amounts of amplification per frequency. Volume control is the control that you have over that, which isn’t as precise as the control that they have–just everything up and down (although phonak sharpens the sound a bit as you go up in volume, so it’s not really a linear up and down).
46%? Ok, wow, I didnt realise I was that impaired to be honest. I knew I had an issue, but didn’t realise it was so significant. I checked my prior audiogram and I had 90% WR at 50 db in left ear and 0% WR in right ear at 90db. I presume thats pretty bad.
I suppose as you say, I have to start somewhere, and based on what you said, I have options, Sphere pair to Cros to Sphere single.
So its fair to say the gain you refer to is specific boosts to different frequencies? Is the aim to get a flat line response across all frequencies? Like an old school graphic equalised flat response?
50 dB HL is slightly louder than average speech, but 90% WRS is pretty good. The SII measure I’m giving you is a calculation of what percentage of speech sounds you have access to through the filter of your hearing loss–so it sounds like your brain is pretty good at filling in the gaps. We don’t want to make it do that. But that said, most adults do pretty well with an SII of 75% or more. We aid children if their SII is less than 80%.
Yes, no, no. Your clinician will aim to get you to prescriptive gain targets, which are frequency-dependent and level-dependent based on your hearing loss. Flat line response across all frequencies is the first thing that most people think of, and was certainly the first thing that audiologists thought of way back in the day. But add a few decades of refined understanding of hearing loss and the non-linear way it works, hearing conservation, loudness curves, compression tolerance, etc. etc. and you get to the various mathematical equations that give you modern prescriptive targets which I don’t think we even ask students to manually calculate anymore.
Research in this area is ongoing, prescriptive targets for pediatric non-implanted bone conduction devices were just released, and update of NL2 adult prescriptive targets (with incorporation of AI in some way) is expected fairly soon. Largely the prescriptions that we have are optimized for ears like your left ear, and are a bit less effective for ears like your right which means a bit more trial and error is expected when fitting that side.