So, given you don’t find them to be a hassle…
Yeah, you should probably get them. $1800 is a good price.
I’d fall on the side of recommending keeping the hearing aids. At 29 I assume you are working or in school. In the workplace you cannot always arrange a quiet place. With mild to moderate hearing loss I found hearing aids invaluable - you don’t want to miss the joke that tells you what is really going on, or have trouble understanding a name (names are very difficult with untreated hearing loss). Also consider that asking people to repeat themselves, missing names, and being unable to hear in a noisy restaurant or bar with colleagues could cause you to miss important information, impacting your success.
I also suspect that early adoption of hearing aids makes using them much easier. As a lawyer I couldn’t afford to miss anything being said, and got hearing aids in my mid-50’s. I’ve noticed friends getting them later in life find the transition much more difficult. Perhaps any untreated loss can cause the brain to atrophy. Also check your insurance. Some employer health plans now provide some coverage.
I work in IT, I take calls, manage tons of computers and handle walk ins. There is always chit chat going on near my desk. With hearing aids I can fully understand my coworker from 30+ feet away, prior to that, I would miss a bunch of words.
I tend to ask people to repeat themselves to the point where they get annoyed and tell me to “Forget It”. Out of a sentence there is always one or two words I didn’t quite get. I would try to guess what the word was but sometimes be dead wrong.
There is a place I go to which will call you up to grab your order. Prior to wearing HAs, I would get anxiety over not hearing my name being called. I couldn’t relax and talk to a friend until after I had my food in hand. The first time I wore HAs at that place, I was very happy I could hear my name being called over the background noise.
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I think you may be answering your own question.
You deserve to hear well. I’m a similar age as you, so don’t feel isolated there. If I were you, I would keep them. Hearing aids are an adjustment. The adjustment will pass. Your perseverance is key here. Your audi doesn’t seem to be trying to take advantage of you, but is looking out for your best interest.
I had my test at Costco yesterday. I was fairly impressed with the overall test. It took over an hour to do it all. When we were through it all the results were pretty much as I had expected; bad in right ear, and really bad in left ear. The technician put no pressure on me to buy a hearing aid and said based on my test and a questionnaire that I filled out I could get by without them at this point. I asked if not wearing hearing aids would cause my hearing to get worse faster. Her response was that on a loss of amplitude vs frequency it would likely not make any difference. She said that my word recognition was good, and if it was worse then there can be deterioration in the way the brain processes sounds, and if you let your word recognition slip the brain has trouble relearning it.
In the end I essentially had to ask her if the Kirkland Signature 8.0 aids were suitable for my hearing loss. She said yes, and I went for them.
My thoughts would be in your case if you feel they work, then go for them. I would compare what the first place is offering to the KS 8.0 to ensure you are getting the best bang for your buck. The link below has the most detailed feature list of the KS 8.0 that I have found. It is actually the Signia 7Nx which is almost identical except the KS8 had no tinnitus masking feature.
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Perhaps you didn’t come across this thread.
I think they’re also related to the Rexton 8C.
It’s always interesting to follow peoples’ musings about getting to HA’s. Thanks
Yes, I know about that thread and have the documents/links on the KS8 and Rexton 8C. However what I have found is that Rexton does not like to explain in any detail what their features really are. Signia does a much better job, in particular with that document I gave a link to, in explaining what the features really do. At the Signia-Pro website you can get much more readable information on the Nx platform, and the Pure 312 Nx in particular which matches up to the KS8. The Signia Nx Library is also helpful in digging into more detail.
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I think you’ve answered your own question - you need the HA.
It is the informal interactions that can be so important to being effective and perceived as a strong member of the team.
I had my second opinion done by Costco Hearing. They recommended me keeping my hearing aids as they said I am on the borderline where they would recommend hearing aids. They also mentioned that I should consult a dr since I have signs of Meniere’s Disease.
I have had MRIs and CT Scans of my head in the past 2 years. No tumors or anything.
Thanks for all the advice!
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I wouldn’t do it. Your loss is so mild. Are you noticing that you can’t hear well? If not, I’d let it go. I know most would disagree, but I really think wearing hearing aids has made my hearing worse! I could hear better before! That’s just my take on it.
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You HEAR with your BRAIN, not your ears. So if your brain gets used to NOT hearing certain sounds well and THEN you get hearing aids, you will have a much harder adjustment and possibly put the aids in the drawer because it is too hard to retrain your brain to hear the new sounds.
My father got aids with a loss like yours. I had been “mumbling” for several years, and suddenly he could understand me again. He honestly thought they were not doing much good until batteries went out in the middle of a meeting . . .!
I would ABSOLUTELY recommend aids if you can already tell a difference in how often you have to ask people to repeat!!!
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The mechanics are in the ears producing a signal. What to do with that signal from the ears is in the brain.
Funny. My father said I mumbled too.
True Ménière’s disease is actually very rare and is a clinical diagnosis of exclusion. Please don’t get worked up by this suggestion by a non medical professional. They are hearing aid DISPENSERS, not even audiologists. I am rolling my eyes hard here. As a medical professional on the path to ENT, do get checked out if you are having signs of vertigo, hearing loss in one ear, tinnitus.
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I was going to say the same. Recurring episodes of spinning vertigo lasting hours to days along with fluctuating hearing loss? Maybe Meniere’s. But it seems like every little bit of dizziness is called Meniere’s these days.
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If you are 29 years old, and don’t feel inconvenienced by your loss, I would wait. I started using hearing aids at the age of 40, which was later than I should have waited. My hearing was damaged by playing in a rock band as a teenager, followed by 7 years of exposure to jet engines in the Air Force. Hearing aids were bigger and uglier back then, so I procrastinated. It took a couple of accidental inappropriate responses to questions from female coworkers to force me to make a change. Don’t let that happen! If you find yourself nodding or affirming things that you really did not hear, do something about it.
Reminds me of a coworker years ago that had hearing issues. His usual line to close a conversation was “Enough said.”, which translated to “I have no idea what you said”.
Hello Catherine,
Before paying $1,800, try BeHear NOW, www.wearandhear.com.
It is ideal for situational hearing and it doesn’t look like a hearing aid at all.
It costs $249, has all bells and whistles of a high end hearing aid, allows to make your own hearing test with immediately applied results, works as a Bluetooth stereo headset with personalized sound.
We’ve developed it to help people with mild or moderate hearing loss, like you. It can help to people with more serious losses as well. The technologies inside is a result of our 16 years of experience in sound enhancement with tens of millions products on the market benefiting from them.
Alexander
Will it be suitable for my hearing loss (my audiogram is in my profile)
I am not an audiologist, but I looked at your case. I think you good ear can, definitely, be helped. Your bad year may be not. We don’t have “cross” in our current software to transfer the sound from the bad side to the good one, but we’ll introduce it later this year. Sorry, but cannot say when, exactly.
Is that a firmware upgrade or a new hardware upgrade?