Heh I tried turning Whistle Block off when I had the unvented double power domes and it immediately went to permanent feedback. Might try it with my new aids when I get them and see what happens.
That happened to me this morning. I’m new to aids and just switched to different aids and domes and these don’t stay in as well. At first I didn’t know what was going on. I pushed the right one in a little and that stopped it. Now when thing start sounding weird I know to push them in a little.
If there is too much venting, the low frequencies just leak out of the ear. It’s not a hearing aid function thing, it’s a physics of sound thing.
Psych also raises a good point. If the “occlusion” someone is experiencing is a muted, muffled sound, this is generally an amplification problem, not an occlusion problem. Occlusion is the chewing, walking, boomy-voice-even-when-the-aids-are-off thing.
All you can really do is try. Confirm with your audiologist what modifications can be done if you get the full mold and find it too bothersome.
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I just switched to Naida M90 aids with custom molds that have a very teenie, tiny vent tube (I am not sure what size it is). They replace Ambra UP aids that had standard vents and a huge amount of feedback (particularly when walking near a wall - they howled and squealed like crazy). But the Naidas have a really small vent tube. So small that I can’t even get the vent cleaning tool (the one with the long thick hair-like protrusion) in to clean it. There is no feedback with these aids, but there is occasionally a feeling of fullness that passes quickly if I move my jaw. I’m pretty sure I can live with it.
Aye Gramps, I have the same size vent as you on my Marvel 90’s, I believe its size is 0.8mm? How are you getting on with the Nadia M90’s, do you see much improvement from prior HA’s ? Cheers Kev
You need to be sure that your mold does not have too much contact to your jew bone. In my opinion that’s the point where most of occlusion related sound comes from.
I had and have a vented hard custom ear mold until mid 2018. Then I closed the vents using a tooth paste (so I can reopen it easyly). The sound was much fuller. Fuller sound btw was just a positive side effect. My main goal was to keep noise away from reaching my eardrum on its direct way. This was especially useful during phonecalls (via bluetooth). But you have to keep my audiogram in mind, there is no hearing in the highs.
Beginning of 2019 I bought my unvented soft custom earmold. In the beginning it was difficult to get them into the ears. But I get used to the trick. If it is too far in the canal then it touches the jew bone. So I slightly move it out again. But the ear is still sealed. When my HA is turned off then there is almost no noise in contrast to my previous hard molds. There is no “must have” with power aids but to me it is very nice.
For the unvented hard ear mold it took me 2 or 3 months (I guess afterwards). For my soft ear mold I needed 1 or 2 weeks to get used to them.
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Dani - you post was very insightful. I’m all for “better hearing” and if wearing a unvented soft mold improves my hearing level great. I’ve just worn hard shell hearing aid molds since day one and gotten used to them. I did not have a chance to put soft molds in by ear but when I tried to remove them - it was hard. With acrylic molds you push on the bottom part of my back ear and molds pop out. That didn’t happen with soft mold so the (not glued) tubing came off hearing aid.
I’m tempted to take something to chew on when I test the unvented soft molds in my Audi office. But I’ll probably hold off until I come home and start the trial period. You might be right regarding the relationship with a unvented ear mold and jaw movement. But other then “mold depth” entering ear canal, I don’t see how you could adjust a hearing aid mold to jaw movement.
Maybe I had luck with my ear canal. As said above I can move the mold out of the ear just a few micrometer and then there is no or only little contact to my jaw.
Some mold manufacturer suggest using a “nugget” for this. On the other hand there are only very few who wear unvented soft mold at all. You can try to close an open vent of your hard custom mold first.
Can you please enter your audiogram into your profile, maybe you aren’t a candidate for unvented molds anyway.
I used to wear Naida aids with power slimtubes and soft silicone ear molds. These molds had a 1mm vent which is very small, almost none. These molds were canal lock design molds. The lock is a small piece of silicone that fits into an upper crevice of the ear. This small piece turned out to be an easy way to get a hold of the mold to pull it out. Using the slimtube to pull them out would come loose from the silicone mold.
With these molds I would hear the drumming sound with each step as I walk. Same thing with chewing but I can hear much better with these molds.
From the BTE aids I moved to RIC aids and soft silicone molds with canal locks. These too have major occlusion. My next step is to try hard lucite skeleton molds wit select a vents. Hopefully this will help with occlusion.
I wear custom ITE HA’s and have a pressure vent to help with the pressure and the occlusion effect to some degree. I have severe hearing loss. When I was wearing analog ITE HAs back in the day there was no vent since analog HAs did not have feedback management. I got use to the occlusion effect. With the digital HA’s I am able to get enough high frequency gain with a pressure vent. Also my HA’s were made with a deep ear canal which helped with the feedback. And with a RIC or BTE HA the feedback should be less of a problem since the microphone is farther away from the receiver than with a ITE HA. Having no vent increases the low frequencies sound in the ear(occlusion) and does not allow natural mid-high frequencies sound travel through a vent(this depends on degree of hearing loss). My audi always recommends trying an aid with a pressure vent and if is does not work out you can always plug the vent and see if that works. Also what brand of HA do you have? As far as feedback management is concerned all major manufacturers have good feedback control but I think Starkey stills has the best to what I have been fitted with. Again the type and degree of hearing loss impacts in how you can be fitted with a HA.
Well from reading posts I’m going to gather that a “more severe/profound” hearing loss dictates trying (first) a unvented soft hearing mold and testing to see if it works. I’m in Dani’s camp regarding issues with unvented mold and jaw movement (also walking) but its been a while since I’ve tried a unvented mold. Maybe eight years ago.
What I also find interesting is the depth of the “ear canal” mold. I’ve recently switched Audi’s but in the past (with old Audi) my ear canal (mold) section was made very long. And I’m not sure that’s ideal with a unvented mold, since the longer the mold the more it trigger occlusion with jaw movement. Just guessing here? A shorter ear can mold might allow for less movement when eating/walking etc. Maybe some here think I have this backwards, but the depth of a ear mold does play some role.
Just not sure how much.
Regarding canal length…older studies showed that a longer ear canal length can reduce occlusion effect due to less space between the ear drum and HA output therefore less space for low frequencies to bounce around. The drawback of long canal length is comfort of the mold.
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Well then maybe “longer” the better. I’ll need to compare my new mold canal (length) to my current ones and see if there is any significant difference.
"Diminished occlusion effect. The occlusion effect occurs when an object seals the outer portion of the ear canal, causing the wearer to perceive a hollow echoic sound in his/her own voice. In the case of hearing aid wearers, the effect is caused by sound vibrations trapped within the occluded ear canal.
Successful resolution to the occlusion effect is twofold: 1) obtain a solid seal in the bony portion of the ear canal, and 2) decrease the spatial placement between the tip of the instrument and the tympanic membrane, thus limiting the opportunity for vibrations. Experience in proper deep-fitting techniques can achieve such desirable results, with little to no resulting occlusion effect.6"
One trick that I have used is to apply a very thin coating of Miracell liquid. I got this stuff from my audiologist and it is slightly oily and also very calming for itchy ears like mine. The best thing about using it is that it allows for a deeper and quicker install of the molds. There is no chance for sound to leak out once they are in your ear canal. Of course you have to make sure the molds are cleaned off before bedtime or you have a slightly sticky residue on them the next morning. I generally clean this off with antiseptic ‘wet ones’ wipes for the molds and the outer part of my ear canal.
Hi Dani, Naida M90s are by far the best aids I have used yet as my hearing problems slowly get worse the older I get. I can appreciate the higher level of technology that has gone into these aids the longer I wear them. And I particularly appreciate all the cool gadgets that connect with them that make the experience even better. However, I can also detect very slight pauses and irritating signals that happen as the aids change from one program to another in the autosense setting (such as when someone turns on music while I am in conversation with someone else.) I trust that this kind of transition will be ironed out in the next firmware release.
By the way, I was at Oberammergau many years ago (1960 to be exact) and the Passionspiel was on (as always at the start of every decade). This year I expect will be very different with COVID-19. Sadly, I would expect that the play will not be on as usual.
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I am not sure about the Naida aids but my Oticon OPN1 aids were slow to switch the programs with the changing environment and I told my Audi and he was able to change something in the computer software that he said made the transition much faster, I no longer detect the transitioning of the programs.
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This is simple tuning. No firmware update needed.
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@Gramps
Has the other thread about number of programs been closed? Here we talk about occlusion with non-vented molds. Anyway my Naida B70 were the best aids I’ve ever had, too. And oh, the Passion play were cancelled this year. And Oktoberfest 
@spectrumplay
Now that you’ve posted your audiogram: Wow, don’t you have the choice to go for a CI? Your loss is terribly bad. I’ve gone the path this year in February and I like the feeling not to have any mold or dome in my ear canal. It’s fantastic.
Thanks for sharing your audiogram.