Hi, I saw this thread because of your recent reply. Their recommendation is important, but their experience and expertise is worth the real value. That goes for whoever you purchase from or work with. With your hearing loss (and most hearing losses in general), a recommendation should only be made after knowing certain things about you and how the loss affects you. At a minumum, I would want to know: how you rate your hearing; have you tried any sort of hearing aid, and what did you like or dislike; what specific situations do you want help to hear better? I think that’s a good starter list. Probably a good list or any person posting here looking for other opinions in general. If you post those things, you will get some really insightful feedback.
Teachers are not only very sensitive to their own hearing loss, but very empathetic to other people’s difficulty communicating with them. That can also effect the fitting and programming of the hearing aids. I think people underestimate the value of lifestyle and mindset on how to fit a hearing aid, and also how to counsel about the why of a hearing aid. Why is it so annoying being the #1. Most people do a lot better with it being annoying when they understand why it is annoying for them.