It was discovered about 15 years ago that I had mild hearing loss mainly affecting my left ear.
It was diagnosed as a genetic Snhl progressive cookie bite loss.
I was told that I would need a hearing aid one day.
Fast forward and friend and family are asking me if I am going to be getting one soon. My son just flat said "Mom you NEED a hearing aid. To be honest I am tired of fighting to hear.
So… sad to say I think the time has come.
My Audi results posted now are several years old.
That’s it in a nut shell.
I anxiously await my Audi visit and what my hearing future will be!
Cookie
Family and loved ones always seem to know that we need help with our hearing before we recognize the problem. We are usually the last ones to know that we need hearing aids.
Hello Cookie.
You say it’s sad but i for what i’ve seen all people say that before getting Hearing aids.
I’m sure you will be relieved to hear with them.
Just one question : how do an ENT can say if your hearing loss is genetic?? Like that, a default choice?
I can’t tell you that. All I know is what I was told after different tests. That was thru the Audi at my local hospital - clinic.
Sad but looking forward to better hearing.
Cookie;
It IS hard to come to the realization that something needs to be done about your hearing. My story is actually very similar to yours. I thought I wouldn’t need a hearing aid until I was much older than I am now. But you know what? It’s not that bad. In fact, it’s not “bad” at all. Sure, there’s an adjustment period. It takes awhile to get used to hearing sounds differently than how you’re used to hearing them, and also to get used to sounds you may not have heard at all for awhile. But once you realize how much hearing aids help you, you’ll start to feel more comfortable and more accepting. Change usually means adjusting some part of our life to whatever the new “normal” is. Life with hearing aids will just be your new normal. At first, you might feel like everyone around you notices them. (They don’t!) But then you gradually get used to having them on all the time, and eventually, you’ll mostly forget about them. When this journey started for me two years ago, I thought I’d never adjust and that I’d always feel self-conscious about wearing my aids, and worried about the future potential of further hearing loss. Now I don’t feel self-conscious, and in fact, I often forget I’m wearing hearing aids to the point that I’ve almost worn them into the shower twice! (Yes, they’re really THAT comfortable that I don’t notice I’m wearing them now.)
In terms of how your future hearing might be, worrying won’t change that. I’m a worrier, and I spent the first year stressing about the what ifs. What if I go deaf in my right ear? What if I go deaf in both ears??? I was really down about it. But then one day I woke up and gave myself a reality check. For right now, I CAN hear. I CAN converse with everyone that’s important to me, and even those I’m not so fond of;) I CAN enjoy listening to music, hearing the birds sing, listening to the ocean, and hearing the whispers of my kids. If I need hearing aids to help with that, then so be it. The reality is that anything could happen to anyone at any time. Nothing about life is a given.
“Genetic” hearing loss is often the diagnosis ENTs default to when they can’t pinpoint an exact cause. That was my original speculation, and my neurotologist more or less confirmed my suspicions at my last visit. There are so many different genes tied in to hearing that a mutation/flaw in any one of them can cause significant issues. Only time will definitively answer the question of how fast one will lose hearing. I wish there was something better, but it seems that for now there isn’t.
When you do finally see the audiologist, make sure you ask lots of questions. Write down your questions in advance, as you think of them, and bring that piece of paper with you to the appointment. Also, tell the audiologist about any concerns or fears you have. They’re there to help you, and part of their job is to help with the adjustment to wearing hearing aids, and to help facilitate your acceptance.
Feel free to message me. I’ve cleared out my inbox so there’s space now.
Kerry
Hey Cookie,
Just a couple of weeks ahead of you with my first hearing aids, and with MUCH worse numbers!
I was upset at first, especially when I heard those dreaded words, ’ moderate to severe hearing loss.’ But now that I have my HAs it’s wonderful. It took me just a couple of days to get used to them, and now the world sounds really odd without them. Honestly, for me the anticipation was a whole lot worse than reality of wearing HAs.
Best wishes for you!
Thanks to all who respond to my posts.
you have been so encouraging and helpful. I really to appreciate it!
Now that I have accepted this I am very anxious to get the ball rolling!
Oh…when I called Costco they said the average spent for Ha’s was 2500 to 2800.
Any suggestion on how I could keep that down to around 2ooo?
I see where the kirklands are 1799 a pair. That would work for me.
I have a pretty laid back lifestyle. I am in quiet most of the time not counting church, grandkids at least once per month and ladies meeting ( somewhat loud) 2x a month.
Thank again,
Cookie
Looking at your loss, and while I’m no audi, yours does not look that bad, mild in one ear, and perhaps moderate in the other.
I’ll guess, and say there’s virtually any brand and type hearing aid at your disposal, and that would work fine for you, including the most discreet completely in the canal (CIC) and perhaps possibly even what’s called a Invisible In the Canal (IITC) Aids.
Your audi will of course know more, and it will be mostly your choice of type I think, what YOU feel you will wish to have?
Usually, women wear there hair longer than men, and even the Reciever in Canal (RIC) types are quite discreet and almost invisible to see when worn.
RICs have some advantages, some are quite tiny, and more than likely with the non-severe degree of your loss, there probably would be no need of custom molds I’m thinking. Thus, every so often you yourself can change molds, wax guards, just about as simply as changing a battery.
With such then, you could possibly be in and out in one day with a HA such as an RIC, with universal molds, and be enjoying better hearing within your first day of use. With custom fitted HAs, it means an impression must be first taken, and those are sent to the factory to be made into hearing aids. The wait is usually not long.
Your audi will no doubt request you have another hearing test if the one you’ve posted is old. That these you have provided are possibly does not accurately reflect your current loss.
I went through the struggle, many of us do, where we fight ourselves to not wishing to cross this barrier, like it’s some bad thing. But after some time you’ll say to yourself that “I should’ve done this a lot sooner”! You enjoy a better quality of living, where you’ll better be able to participate in conversations, won’t have to be asking folks to repeat themselves, hear some things you haven’t hear in a long time.
There’s an acclimation period, we all go through it, getting used to wearing them, but after a short period of time, you will become accustomed to them, and will almost forget you’re wearing them.
For certain, you will need another hearing test, what you’ve posted may not indeed be what your current loss is.
Mark
These posts are comforting to me, it’s not an easy road but so much easier knowing what others have experienced and what to expect. I’ve been on the forum a little more than a year, and settled on my first HAs January 4, though I’d trialled others for 6 months prior. I had an unexpected surprise last summer and was reminded of it again Saturday night. Yes, I got the HAs because I couldn’t hear colleagues at work, and that has improved. But, the surprise–crickets! Yes, on summer evenings in Michigan one may hear crickets and frogs calling to each other. I tried the HAs in mute, then thinking maybe the receivers were blocking the sound, took them out. I could not hear the crickets at all and only very faintly, one of 2 frogs calling back and forth to each other. It was a shock- I heard fireworks across the bay and loud frogs before, but was missing all the crickets, most of the frogs, trees blowing in the wind, waves on the beach, conversations happening at a distance (though not details). I am less tired at the end of the workday as I’m not straining so hard to hear, but the sounds of nature were a huge bonus, from the perspective of a ‘quiet’ life.
The ability to hear without having to say what is definitely awesome! The bonus to hearing aids are all of the environmental sounds that I can now hear and had forgotten about.
I HATE the sound of crickets! They’re the tinnitus that lives in my head! Seriously, though, I have to agree with you about hearing those sounds again (except for the crickets)… 
Cookie-I am new to these forums and on day two of wearing my new hearing aids (I have Oticon Ria2). My husband has been the one to notice my hearing loss more than anyone else because he lives with me just as your son noticed your loss because he spends the most time with you. I can tell you though that I was extremely nervous to have my aids put in yesterday but its made a world of difference already. I can hear my husband when he is in the other room, he hasn’t had to repeat a thing to me, and I hear all these things I have not heard in years like birds or a/c vents or the sound of my footsteps on carpet. Just a whole new world. I’m in my thirties by the way and we’re just calling this an Adventure in our lives to ease the transition for me. I can’t find the paperwork that has my numbers on it but I was told by an ENT about 18 months ago that if I didn’t get aids within two years I would start to lose other functions of my brain. I didn’t realize how interconnected our hearing was until that Dr said that to me. If you have insurance check your coverage on there, mine are covered under insurance.
Yes, hearing is important because there is an entire portion of your brain dedicated to speech, language, and sound interpretation. When your hearing declines, your brain starts to atrophy.
I will never forget that about 4 years before I got hearing aids, I was sitting in a meeting at work in a large room with a huge conference table. As people went around the room detailing their progress on various projects, my mind wandered for a minute because I was struggling to hear the people at the far end of the table.
I thought nothing of this and just assumed they were speaking too softly or mumbling. As it came closer to being my turn to speak, I “tuned back in” to the voices, only to momentarily discover that I could not understand anything that was being said. I hear words, and voices, but it was almost as if for about 10 seconds people were speaking in some sort of alien gibberish… even though I knew it was English. It was very disorienting. I focused intently and was able to suddenly “decode” the voices again and understand them.
Around this time, I was also finding myself struggling at times to find the “right word” for the first time in my life, in both speech and writing. I’ve always had an excellent vocabulary and this was a little frightening to me, but I just attributed it to my brain getting “old”, even though I was only in my late 30’s.
Only years later when it was OBVIOUS I desperately needed hearing aids and I started to do some research did I discover that your brain processes sounds into speech and has to work much harder when you cannot hear all the sounds you should, and when you cannot hear for a while, the portion of the brain used for that function begins to atrophy or be reassigned for other uses, making understanding speech even more difficult.
Took me many years (over 10) to realize I needed hearing help. Was in denial about it for a while, and as recently as January I was convinced it was just some ear wax blocking my hearing.
People will generally approach your hearing problems in several negative ways: this person is drunk/ on drugs, they have ADHD, or they are stupid. Eventually they catch on that you have hearing problems but it doesn’t make a good first impression and a lot of people get aggravated when asked to repeat words, and make you feel like an idiot. Makes a semi-social person like me downright anti-social.
It’s serious business.
As an ADHD kind of person I definitely noticed a deterioration in my ability to pay attention, especially in group settings. What I heard sounded more like the adult voices in Charlie Brown movies than actual words or phrases. Of course, with a lot of effort I could decipher some of the speech, but much of the time I couldn’t muster the concentration. Now with HAs I do a lot better, though still really struggle when multiple people are talking at the same time.
…and yes, I could get really grumpy because people were not speaking clearly. I would also guess at much the speech I thought I heard, but often my guesses were wrong. Doesn’t help with maintaining a professional image.
Just wondering how you’re getting along with your Ria2 HAs. I am 41, but have been wearing HAs off and on since my 20s, depending on life and work circumstances. I am getting a pair of Ria2 Pro Ti HAs on Thursday. Was hoping to hear from someone who’s been living with these HAs for a while.
Thanks.
I’m terribly handicapped from hearing loss I think from antibiotics. have you looked into aldosterone?
vit E, ginko may help