I went to a Costco hearing center over the weekend and had a hearing test done. Hopefully I attached my audiogram correctly. Based on these results, they suggested some Jabra Enhance Pro RIC hearing aids with HP3 receivers and an earmold for the right ear. Based on my use scenarios I went with the battery type 13 model.
For my hearing loss, should these potentially be a good fit? I’m trying to do online research to become a little less ignorant but still have a long way to go. I’d appreciate any input and reasoning for or against these. Thanks.
Just a post edit: To clarify, I’m not asking if I will like or be happy with the Jabra’s (Who could tell me that?), I’m really just asking from people’s experience/knowledge, does this hearing aid make sense in a RIC platform with the HP receivers and a mold in the right ear for my hearing loss, based on my audiogram? I.e., is it in the right ballpark, or should I be fitted for a BTE hearing aid, or more or less powerful receivers, no molds, molds in both ears, etc…? Appreciate any helpful input.
You may want to go with UP receiver for your right ear… I have Resound Omnia with UP receiver.
Resound one and jabra enhance pro is the same/similar hearing aid but under a different brand name
Costco won’t let you change receivers on your own nor will they give you any to try (I buy.mine on ebay) you must return or try them in store. My Costco wouldn’t even let me change domes or offer a spare, just in case. Costco makes it very hard to experiment or try different receivers because of this. They claimed we do to much damage
I liked the Jabra’s enough to get their equivalent, the Resound One which I found at a steal.
Some observations, I liked the programming at my trial better than after REM. Without molds they were inadequate for my loss. It took a while and about 4 visits to get adjusted somewhat correctly. For me, HP and UP receivers offered some increase in frequency gains, but didn’t improve speech comprehension or feedback control. Self programming allowed me to fine tune them to where I am really happy with them. After many years with battery aids, i have the rechargeables and will never go back to batteries. Experiment with mold vent size, it makes a difference. Costco suggested vents that were to big for my loss.
Give yourself time to acclimate to them. Consider self programming for fine tuning.
Best wishes and keep us informed
So, now I’m curious. Why are you asking your question?
Would you have preferred I went without hearing aids until I had done enough research to satisfy you before I bought? If you are knowledgeable enough to know ahead of time what brand and type of hearing aid, receiver, dome, mold, etc… will work for your hearing loss, I am happy for you. I am not knowledgeable enough, thus I am relying on the expertise of the Costco hearing aid fitter. At the same time, I am also trying to learn from other’s experiences while I’m going through this process.
Seeing that Costco has a 180 day return period. I personally don’t see a problem with relying on the expertise of the hearing aid fitter to start. I am sorry if my approach offends you, but if you would rather offer criticism than help right out of the gate, I’ll just respectfully ask you to not post.
Unfortunately, there are some members on this forum whose demeanor and approach make this one of the most unwelcoming sites that I’ve ever participated in.
@mr.smithster Thanks for the reply. What software do you use for adjusting your hearing aids? Also, how much time do you think you invested in self adjusting to get to where you were comfortable making changes and actually getting improvements?
It’s interesting the different experiences that are had at Costco. I have had them change out receivers for no charge while also providing multiple dome replacements at no charge. The downside is that the closest Costco is 1.5 hours away.
Fine. Request granted. I just get curious when I see the cart coming down the road ahead of the horse. I’m not offended. However, I think it’s hard for members to help when you’ve painted yourself into a corner with an uninformed decision about treating what may prove to be a challenging audiogram. You’re now faced with a binary proposition: what you’ve hastily chosen will work, or they won’t.
Perhaps it would be more productive for you to back out of the sale until you can become better-informed and have 3 or 4 viable alternatives, rather than coming to the forum to assuage what Leon Festinger called cognitive dissonance about your purchasing decision, based on the recommendation of one Costco fitter, who may be competent or not.
But I will retire from this discussion and let the Welcome Wagon folks help you to deal with your second thoughts.
@SpudGunner
So rather than get hung up on a purchase that I can return at any time during the next 6 months, why can’t you just offer input on whether or not a RIC hearing aid with similar specs to the Jabra with a higher output receiver and an ear mold in my right ear is a reasonable setup for my hearing loss shown in my audiogram?
@kallmr: Because I don’t know the answers to those questions. I am just noticing what I perceive to be a flawed process that I feel is unlikely to fiscover the content you need to guide your decision-making. But rather than make that value judgment, I asked what I considered to be a legitimate question of you, prior to offering my opinion.
Thanks for the links. I have looked at those during my searches in the past. I’ll admit that I don’t have the knowledge at this point to use that data to compare hearing aids and determine what might be a potential fit for me or not, thus why I posted. I guess I need a hearing aid for dummies that helps you interpret hearing aid specs to audiograms.
So far my experience with Costco’s service is similar to yours. They’ve given me many extra domes and filters to minimize the number of trips I have to make to their store which is nearly 2 hours away. Yesterday they were willing to mail me a different kind of dome to test, bit today a more experienced employee there called me to say they would do that but they have to recalibrate the settings to account for the different kind of mold. She didn’t know if that could be done remotely. I’ve decided to skip that different dome type test and just have them make custom ear molds. But I wanted to share my experience so far to chime in on their helpfulness.
Also, I went there as an experienced hearing aid wearer who’d done some research but mostly still decided to rely on their recommendations to get started then do additional research and testing during their very generous trial period.
I see a lot of people on this forum who seem to have trialled 3 or 4 different kinds of hearing aids. How do you do that? I’ve never been to an audiologist that was that accommodating over the period of time that would take nor do most audiologists I’ve dealt with handle more than 3 or 4 hearing aid types. Are you trialling from different practices simultaneously?
From the fitting data it looks like the HP receiver would work, but I agree with an earlier poster that the UP receiver might be a better fit. It would give you some head room in case your hearing deteriorates further.
Hey there. I have no idea about the Jabra hearing aids you’ve gotten so I won’t comment on that. What I will tell you is that your positive feelings will be entirely based on how well the Costco HIS / AuD programs the hearing aids, and whether or not they are competent in doing so.
As two other individuals have pointed out, they believe that you should be switched from HP receivers to UP receivers to leave a buffer for any further potential hearing loss. It will be up to the person programming your hearing aids to determine whether or not they made the correct decision to choose these receivers.
What I will tell you from experience is not to expect it to be a walk in the park. It was for me, but that’s because I have an easy hearing loss to fit. What I mean by what I say is, sometimes you may have to go back for an additional setting change. Maybe you hear something that you don’t like, or maybe one frequency may be too loud, or you may not be getting amplification in certain environments. Depending on your hearing aids, the person working on your programming at Costco should be able to account for this and give you settings that should help you out.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get it right away, things take time, and since you have a 180 day return period, you’ve got plenty of time to give things a shot. If you don’t care for it, then by all means, head back and return it. What is important is to just take notes on situations you’re experiencing, and bring those back to Costco to build on it.
