Is it the Aids or the Provider

Hearing Aids
#1

I’ve had high frequency hearing loss my whole life. Have lost a lot of midrange now too. Got Hearing Aids in 2000, and I’m now on what I think is my 4th set. This time I changed audiologists, to someone closer. Had Resound Linx last. It’s been three years now with Widex Moments, and I am going crazy. Driving my wife and others crazy as I just can’t understand people as I used to. They are unusable via bluetooth on the phone.

I am not sure if it just these hearing aids, or (more likely) an audiologist who just can’t or won’t adjust them as I need. I believe that my audiograms are likely always wrong. I have severe tinnitus that, in a silent room, is simply louder than the beeps. So the program gives me too many highs, producing a screechy, squawky sound. I’ve had her adjust them multiple times, always saying the same thing and it never improves. So either she just can’t work around what the software is telling her and what I’m telling her, or these Widex HAs don’t cut it. Or both.

I think it’s time to move on from both of them. HAs should be fine, but I assume nobody else will support HAs they didn’t dispense Any suggestions? Is it time to just pay up for new HAs? In some ways I fear switching and getting the same result again.

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#2

What is your audiogram / hearing loss and what strength receiver are you using?

We can help you better if we know more information.

#3

Don’t go getting new HAs just yet, as there’s a whole lot that can be done in making adjustments to suit the way you like to hear, possibly another audiologist clinic could help, but I think your a perfect candidate for DIY, it’s easy enough and plenty of people from right here on hearingtracker to help you along.

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#4

There’s so many things that could be going on here and based on the information supplied most responses will be guesses. I think my first step would be to see a new audiologist and get your hearing rechecked and maybe get the aids looked at

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#5

The receivers are R3s. I have tried every dome Widex sells and several they don’t. None have solved it. I don’t have my current Audiogram. This is from the prior provider, so maybe 3 years old.

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#6

The new audiologist is less experienced than the prior one. It’s just a guess on my part, but I think it’s possible that people born with hearing loss learn to hear a certain way. Fitting them (me) is likely different than someone who loses hearing later in life. I never really heard high frequencies, and my brain seems to convert them to noise.

I’ll check into DIY. I’ve maxed out the adjustments I can make with the app.

#7

It’s true, we’re all different, this is the number one problem when trying to get the Audiology clinic to get everything set up how you “hear” which of course only you can know.

Yeah the settings in the app are very limited in what can be done, in the software it’s very customizable.

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#8

From looking at your audiogram, I wouldn’t expect any hearing aids to help a lot. You have a pretty profound loss. Do you have any idea what your word recognition scores are? I suspect you would qualify for cochlear implants.

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#9

Word recognition without sight and unaided is 20% per the audiogram report. If I recall it goes to about 75% if I can read lips. Masks were brutal for me during the pandemic. With aids that work and lip reading it’s better than 75% I believe. My first audiologist said my speech recognition was close to statistically impossible.

But, as I said, I think the audiogram is off. I think I just hear so much noise all the time (silence to me sounds about like a hurricane with ringing noises mixed in) that the beeps are drowned out. But it’s impossible to convince any audiologist of that. It’s why DIY is appealing to me. Exciting even.

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#10

I got my Widex Moment 330s 18months ago from a very experienced audiologist and they have worked well for understanding people’s speech. In setting them up, the audiologist did not use the standard Widex process as she said some of her previous Widex customers had complained that their hearing aids setup using this process had not worked well; I don’t have any details of what she did but at a high level I gather she used REM + her experience for the setup.
So it may well be your audiologist’s approach. Did she/he use REM for setting your HAs up?

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#11

Well for starters you have a profound hearing loss. Besides the fact that you have a very bad loss your speech comprehension is going to suffer. Thats the rules of the game and aids can only do so much. Besides all of that you need custom made molds that aren’t vented. That will take some getting used to also. I understand you’re frustrated but you need to calm down and take a deep breath. You’re looking to place blame and in reality your loss will be tough for any hearing aids. Although a lot of us with profound loss get by with them. Try not to take frustration out in others. If you don’t like your audiologist find another one. Your molds may just need to be replaced. Bottom line is it’s been 3 years meaning you’re overdue for a hearing test. Based on the test you may need new aids. Ask if you can trial different brands. The speech comprehension may always be a problem which is why you want to trial different aids. Try to stay calm. If nothing else you can also look into a cochlear implant although there’s no guarantees there either. Take a deep breath and find an audiologists you’re comfortable with. And try not to place blame on everyone Some people love Costco

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#12

20% word recognition sounds about right with that audiogram. Do they use the pulsed sounds when they do audiogram? That should make it easier to discern the tones.

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#13

With your hearing loss of both high and low frequencies you will need a powerful hearing aid. Even then I would expect you to struggle in certain noisy situations. I don’t know how you are managing phone calls or just communicating with people…

If you still have your Resound Lynx and they are working try them to see if they are any better…If they are you will know that the Widex are the problem.

IMO and I’m not an AuD I feel it’s time you gave serious thought into getting a Cochlear implant while you still have some natural hearing.

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#14

20 percent speech comprehension puts you exactly with me. Which means in a quiet environment speaking to someone face to face where you can see their lips, you should do fairly well. Anything other than that, a car, a party, a restaurant, anything fairly noisy and it’s going to be hit and miss even with the best aids. That’s the reality of it. You can get aids that filter out background noise or become directional but at 20 percent you’re going to miss 80 percent of what’s said. But focus on the speakers lips and you may be able to raise that percentage somewhat.

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#15

I’m calm. Not blaming anyone. My loss isn’t profound across the spectrum. From 2000hz and up it hasn’t changed since it was first tested when I was in 3rd grade. That was 1974. With no hearing aids I managed to get through college and law school. So I have 50+ years practice at just hearing lows and midrange. The change has been losing some midrange, and a bit of the lows. I can’t use unvented domes, they make it much worse for me. Too shrill. I need my natural lows to come through. Audiologist did another test, it was similar.

I’ve researched cochlear implants some. Not appealing until I exhaust every other option. My Widex’s don’t have a volume issue, in fact they are often too loud. It’s just clarity for me, which I am convinced is due to that 50 years of learning to understand speech without higher frequencies. That’s another reason cochlear implants concern me.

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#16

Right, but those are random words. My prior audiologist said my context based word comprehension was at 80% (said most people with my loss would be closer to 40%). If I know what the topic is I can predictively guess the words quite accurately. Kind of like the predictive CC on YouTube. Lifetime of practice. Lip reading certainly helps. But yes, in a very noisy place or with multiple conversations going on where I lose track, I struggle. Not much to be done about that.

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#17

I’ll be honest with you. There have been plenty of times I thought for sure I knew what the conversation was and then I opened my mouth and could tell by the look on others faces that I got it completely wrong. Now I’m retired so they think I’m just a stupid old man. But I don’t care.

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#18

@hass5744: Stupid? … never! Crotchety? Mmmmm-maybe! :joy:

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#19

It sounds like you want hearing aids that you like the sound of and give you a little bit of help, but that you prefer to rely on context and lip reading.

#20

@slance66 , when you first got the Moments, did they seem like a significant improvement over your previous HAs? I tried the Moments and didn’t like them. My subjective speech comprehension was terrible. Others love them. That’s not at all unusual. Maybe you got Moments because that’s what your audi at the time felt most familiar and comfortable with.

I’d say try as many brands’ top-of-the-line HAs as you can. You might need super-power or ultra-power HAs. Even with just the initial programming you will probably be able to reject some brands right away, as I did the Moments. You might have to try more than one audi. I think many if not all of the best Costco HAs lack a tinnitus-mitigation feature, so you’ll want to stick with private audis. Also Costco has a low tolerance for patients trying different HAs, in my experience.

Once you find a brand you like, use an audi who specializes in that brand. Have the audi tweak the HAs as best they can. At that point you might want to consider buying the necessary gear and going the DIY route.

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