I’ll be visiting my new audiologist in over a week to do more tweakings on my new Oticon Sumo DM digital headband bone conduction hearing aid (still get a few annoying feedbacks and echoes, and need more tweakings) after about 35 years of wearing analog hearing aids.
I read some users had to go many times and drove their audiologists crazy. I hope I don’t do that and hopefully my (3/thi)rd time will be the last one/1. It seems digital is too complex with so many variables and options. This must be a pain to do for every new hearing aid too.
In my personal case. It took 3 visits to have an acceptable level of sound recovery for my personal environments. Each visit had a difference of 2 weeks because the hearing situation had to be lived in my daily environment.
In my case, I’ve had ~20 and counting, since I want to tweak it to the maximum!
But don’t be discouraged by such a high number: I’m just extra picky and I want to adjust every single parameter. In 5 visits I got it 70% right. The rest of the time I was just optimizing things.
To sum up: ~10 visits to get ir right. ~30 to get it perfect.
For a single hearing aid? Wow. Didn’t that drive you both the audiologist and you nuts? Did you have to pay for each visit? How long did you spend per visit? My last visit was about an hour long. I am also picky/stubborn.
These are my first set of Ha"s.
I was afraid I was driving my HIS crazy lol.
Reading that it’s ok if it takes more than 2 or 3 visits to get it right really helped.
My HIS is very nice and patient too.
Right now she has the volume up and changed to a closed dome in one aid.
I am pretty sure I will need more tweaking done.
Good luck in getting yours Just right
My Widex Dream were set up by the Widex rep and nearly perfect right out of the gate. The second visit, they bumped me up to target and I have been super happy even though I am also picky. The third visit was only because they had to remake my ear mold using a open mouth technique for a better seal.
You want to know the truth? Research shows it takes an average of 6 weeks of daily wear to adjust to the sound of hearing devices. Remember, your brain is accustomed to what things sound like with a hearing loss. It will take some time for your brain to relearn how to put all of those sounds back together. In the research, there were NO ADJUSTMENTS performed during the adaptation period. In real world practice, the benefit of all of those adjustments and followups are largely psychosomatic. They give the patient a warm fuzzy that the dispenser is taking so much time and care to get things just right. But in reality, the patient most likely would have adjusted just as well over the same period of time without a single followup or adjustment.
Yep. ASSUMING the devices are programmed correctly for your loss… Here is the real problem. Hearing aids are actually very simple to program. But WAY TOO MANY dispensers overthink it and make it tougher than it is, so they screw it up. And unfortunately, there is no real way for you as the consumer to know for sure if it is done right or not. But ASSUMING the devices are programmed correctly, echos are usually caused because your ear is hearing your own voice naturally and then a split second later, it is hearing your own voice again through the hearing aids. This processing lag time (usually less than 5 ms) disappears once your brain has gotten used to it. That “getting used it” time can be anywhere between 1 day and 1 month, in most cases. Feedbacks… depending on what you mean could be a few things. If you are referring to a whistling sound when you hold your hand up to your ear… it is normal to get a slight amount of feedback when you close your hand over your ear. It is caused by the residual sound reverberating back out of your ear. But if you are squealing away just from sitting in a high back chair or from waving hello, that is excessive. If that is the case, you need to have your dispenser use a more closed dome, or reduce the venting on your ear mold. They should have gotten this right the first day. That may result in your feeling a little more plugged up. But that, too, will pass. Your ears may just not be used to the reduced air pressure. But as they become accustomed to it, it will not be bothersome. There are many things that people wearing new hearing devices say about them (even when they are programmed correctly). MOST of the complaints are a result of not wearing them enough to get used to them. A one week trial really doesn’t tell you anything. Even a one month trial may not tell you much… You might be one of the people that takes 2-3 months… Remember, for every person who takes 1 day, there is a person who takes 3 months… Resulting in a 6-week AVERAGE to get used to them.
The echoes and feedbacks I get are like in my clicky keyboard typings, listening to bassy audio like in loud church’s music in person (lowering hearing aid’s volume doesn’t help), etc. Sometimes I hear them outside and indoor when not loud.
I can reproduce some whistle feedbacks when I listen to Forrest Gump’s theme song. I am definitely going to replay it after my audiologist tweaks my hearing aid. I have a few songs and audio clips to play back too. I just can’t recreate loud bassy audio like in churches, theat(er/re)s, etc. in his office.
Nope. I payed 5000€ for the HA, and hence the free visits during the lifetime of the aid.
Also, my old pair of hearing aids only had 4 channels and that’s it. Now I’m fitting audèo V90, with all the fancy things (adjustable feedback killer, soundrecover, programs, noise canceller, directional microphones…) and that’s driving me crazy.
My aproach is to disable everything, make progressive and isolated adjustments, go to the real word, take notes and improve what’s possible at the next visit. Usually they are short visits (~20 minutes).
I went back to my audiologist yesterday for about an hour. He and Oticon’s phone technical support did more tweakings, enabled features, and stuff as much as we can do with my new Sumo DM BTE. I still have some echoes and feedbacks. I haven’t tried loud bassy music in my local church service yet. He did say that bone conduction hearing aid types don’t get changed much for upgrades and have limitations compared to other hearing aid types.
I have had two high end sets of digital aids. Three visits each to get them dialed in. (That doesn’t count the three audiologists that were worthless in between). When you find an audiologist that can program your aids well, stick with him or her. Aid programming is an art, not a science.
The science will get you close, the art is what makes wearing a hearing aid an amazing experience. If you find a good audi stick with them. They will have solutions for almost every problem and make programming an aid look easy. It is not, but the really good audis just make it look so easy and effortless.
I purchased a pair of Starkey power bte aids approx. ten yrs ago and due to the noisy environment lab in my workplace, I had to go my audiologist eleven times the first year.
I just can’t recreate loud bassy audio like in churches, theat(er/re)s, etc. in his office. 
