Hello,
i am ot a english native speaker, so if there is anything i do not describe correctly please ask!
I hope for advice fitting my hearing aids here. My audiologist is doing the standard fitting process (audiogramm, real ear measurement, and thats it. He clearly says that he will not try to tweak frequencies.
My history:
I am 40 years old and have moderate hearing loss because of two vestibular schwannoma that have stopped growing.
I was wearing phonak virto b titanium B90 with M receiver for about 5 years now. I loved them because of the deep fit, no wind noise, can wear them udner a helmet when doing climbing or biking, and i even fitted some ear pligs that can be worn with the hearing aids in my ear froms wimming! So much more fun going swimming with my child when i can understand what he says!
As my last audiologist was not able to do a fitting that was good enough for me I started doing self fitting 5 years ago. What i did was using AudigramDirect instead of the one measured with the headset, disabled soundrecover, disabled all automatic programms (only used one fix program without any autosense, autosens only in special noisy situaion whe i did NOT need speech udnerstanding like hoovering the house), completly deactivated noise suppression as well as sound relax, and changed fitting formula from Phonak adaptive to to DSLv5. And i was happy with that in 90% of the hearing sitiation.
But my hearing aids are getting old now, i want a second pair to still have some if anything happens until they get repaired, and sadyl my hearing got a bit worse. So, trying a new audiologist any buying new hearing aids, with simlar problems as last time.
This is my audiogramm:
This was the fitting of my old phonak virto b90 titanium with M receiver hearing aids:
Used 90% target gain as with 100% there have always been some freuqncies that were so loud that they covered other things and speec recognation got worse as with 90%
This is the new fitting my audiologist made with the new phonak Virto P50-10 CIC with P receiver.
100% target gain, sound recover on, auto sense on with all default settings:
I tried it for a few days, speech outside and noises in general have been ok, but when my three year old child was talking loud it felt like my ears got blown out. No chance to tolerate that as well as speech recognation has been worse in some situation than with my old hearing aids.
Told that my audiologist and his solution was fitting me a pair of oticon own CIC. I hade the same problem than with the phonaks.
So i started self fitting again. I changed to a programm without autosense again because first i want a programm that works for speed in quiet, and than go on with other things afterwards.
First i transfered my settings from my old hearings to the new one with phonak target software
It was much better than the settings my audiologist made, but after two days trial i could clearly say that those settings just did not fit the new hearing aids. (I just had the feeling that frequency distribution was not right, too muc bass/low frequencies, just not right and a bit unclear.) BUT, i could tolerate loud speech and so i was able to wear the hearings aids and could go on!
New fitting process my myself:
First looked at feedback issus seen in the phonak feedback test.
My hearing aid provider ordered the left hearing aid with about 1,3mm vent and the right with about 1mm. /right sid was because i youl absolutely not tolerate one without vent, that was like a vacuum sucking on my ear the whole time) I tried to narrow down both vents with some wax: in my opion the vent should be made as small as possible ti improve feedback issus: (forst piucture is feedback measured with standard vents, second one where i tried to narrow them down:
Now fitting from the start with Direct audiogramm, 90% target gain, disabled soundrecover, disabled noude suppression, no Autosense.
i am waering the new aids since about a week now and I am happy that i can accept tham now and they are fitted at least so well that i can go on. (in some situation bether than the old ones (mostly speech in quiet), in some sutuation worse (mostly loud speak, speech in noise…)
When my 3 year old child is talking loud now i can at least tolerate it, but loud talk in general still worsens my speech recognation. And even there are some people when they talk in normal, low to moderate volume that there appear to be some frequencies attached to their voice that are making speech understanding dificult even in quiet situations. I have now idea how to decribe that betther)
(both of those problems, at least in my opionion don’t feel like feedback issues)
As i had the feeling that those loudness peaks as well as the attached frequencies are high frequencies i made following custom program just to try if that problems are gone than: ( i know that thos gain might not make sens, it asjust a idea to have a look where it comes from)
I can clearly say that lowering the frequencies between 4 - 8k did not change anything in those particlar problems. Neither got the speech understanding bether, nor got it much worse.
Before going on by myself looking for the problem, I would welcome some advice from other self fitters or professionals here.
Thanks!
Gernot
P.S.: I get a BTE hearing aid for trying end of next week. But because of several situations (sports, child etc.) I would prefer the CIC/ICE if i am able to fit it correctly…