Hearing Aids and Asymmetric Hearing Loss

Hearing Aids
#1

I’m 35 years old and I’ve been recently diagnosed with asymmetric hearing loss. The audiograms for my right and left ears are basically parallel with my right ear in the middle of the “Normal” range and my left ear approx 30db worse. I’m waiting for the results of an MRI to determine if it’s the result of an acoustic neuroma.

My ENT said that if the loss isn’t the result of a tumor, I would benefit from a hearing aid on my left ear. After doing some research for the past few days, I think I’d like to go with the Phonak Savia ART BTE based on the performance and features. Of course, I still need to “test drive” a couple of different models before I make a decision. Since I can barely hear speech in my left ear, I’m guessing that any improvement will be worth slight inconvenience.

Does anyone have any experience or advice when it comes to using only one HA or asymmetric hearing loss in general?

Thanks in advance.

#2

If the speech discrimination is good, maybe a hearing aid in one ear should be fine. in case speech discrimination is poor, you should consider a cross instrument- in a nut shell
a cros intrument uses a microphone and routes the sound on to the other ear… this might be an alternative… Unitron has some wireless cross instruments…

i would advice to try the Phona extra… is is cheaper and have similar performance…

#3

Thank you for the input. I looked at the Unitron “Wi-Fi Mic” cross instrument and it seems to be an interesting product. I’m curious as to how it would affect my ability to determine the location of sounds since my right ear would receive inputs from both sides. However, if I do have an acoustic neuroma, there is a good chance I’ll lose my hearing completely in my left ear, so it really wouldn’t matter at that point.

Regarding the Phonak Extra, I spoke with the audiologist and she said the Extra was her best seller, since it offers 75% of the performance at half the price of the Savia Art. However, cost isn’t really an object in my case and I really like the extra features of the Savia line…adaptive directional mics, Bluetooth, remote control options, longer warranty, more programs, etc. I’m tech geek. :slight_smile:

I’ll definitely discuss these products with my ENT and his audiologist. Thanks again.

#4

I do not activaly sell Phonak nor Unitron, I had taken the time to listen to the
presentation of the YUU- and it was a really impresive instrument…

I must say, that phonak and unitron are the same company and oftent times,
they have identical products with just different brands,
this is the case for Siemens and rexton and Oticon and bernafon…

So the YUU, seems like an identical version of the savia art… with a lot more improvement, this makes sense since phonak is about to enter the wireless instrument arena

#5

Oticon’s Epoch system has on-board Bluetooth capability and works beautifully.

To my knowledge, Phonak’s MicroSavia Art has a boot attachment for Bluetooth and the Unitron Yuu is not Bluetooth compatible at all.

I fit all three and the Epoch is excellent for cell connection via Bluetooth.

#6

it is capable of bluetooth via the streamer…

please note that the epoq w CIC is not bluetooth capable…

#7

After discovering that I do not have a tumor, I spent 3hrs this afternoon trying the Epoq, Savia Art, Audea and Yuu. The Yuu Moxi provided the most natural sounding voices and the noise reduction was much more intuitive, IMO. I don’t get the Bluetooth capability, but that’s OK. I can use my regular BT headset on my good ear anyway.

As an added bonus, I also discovered the Yuu was the least expensive and included the remote control at no cost. The others were at least $100 more plus $200 - $300 more for the remote control.

Since this is my first HA, I’m still learning what it can/cannot do and making notes for my first follow-up visit next week. I’m pretty sure I need the audiologist to turn down the gain on some of the high frequencies since some noises seem to be unbearably loud (sounds of dishes clinking together, phones ringing, etc.)

#8

the fine tuning of the yuu doesnt seem to be that straight forward
so i will suggest a audi who has a lot of training…

#9

I explained the issues to my audiologist and she was able to adjust the Yuu. The difference is like night and day. Phones/dishes/barking dogs/crying babies are now very easy to tolerate compared to the original programming.

Other than a bit of reverb from my own voice (which is very low and fairly loud), the Yuu makes my left ear sound very much like my undamaged right ear. I’m definitely a happy camper.

#10

it is a similar instrument as the Savia, thus it is a great instrument
but the fitting tools seem to be a bit involve…
it takes a train professional