Several people asked me to post my audiogram, so here I am - basically asking experienced people what to make of it and if hearing aids make any sense or not.
Do you have issues hearing or understanding speech? I personally think that some sort of hearing aid could help but I am no expert.
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Itâs a pretty mild loss and benefits from hearing aids are likely to be subtle. Iâm not convinced that hearing aids are going to provide you the very high frequencies that you want as the gain they provide really drops after 4000 Hz.
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Sometimes I have to correct my studentsâ mistakes but usually ask them to speak up so that I can clearly hear what the ending of the word was - was it âdâ or " 've" ? It is no problem in casual conversation with someone sitting at the same table.
I expect speech in noisy situations is an issue too. You must have had some concerns to seek out a hearing test.
In my experience, understanding speech is essential to many professions, especially if foreign accents are involved. The reason most places either have a trial period or a refund period is be because hearing aid experiences are so individual. So are the preferred brand of aid. Since they use different strategies, they can sound different.
Younger people tend to have higher frequency voices so high frequency hearing loss can make communication challenging.
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One of the reasons most places have a trial period or refund period is because itâs required by the laws of the state theyâre operating in.
your hearing loss is not serious,your problem is only after 2khz and if it doesnât interfere with your daily life, you may not even need hearing aids.
If you choose hearing aids, I think open earplugs are more suitable for you, because they can let low frequencies in, and you can choose technology like Oticon, which can absorb more ambient sound(This is just my personal opinion lol)
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Especially if you have insurance coverage I agree considering Oticon.
You mention asking some students to repeat. It may also be possible you are missing things and do not even realize that.
I got my hearing test after my outburst of tinnitus, my tinnitus is at about 8000 kHz and I hoped I could help myself a lot if I could hear things in between 6000 Hz and 8000 kHz that 30 or 40 dB louder - basically on good days that would mean I could barely hear my tinnitus. But it seems that hearing aids don´t work that simly and I cannot just expect them to leave all sounds as they are and only add volume above 4000 kHz or so, right?
Consider using Apple Airpods Pro 2 if you have a late model iPhone. Battery life is not great compared to hearing aids but the hearing can be helped a lot by using the mimi hearing test that then feeds the Airpods with your hearing details. The Apple ecosystem has very good Airpod settings control to accommodate those with a mild to moderate hearing loss.
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I think they can leave sounds 1500 Hz and lower as they are and I think youâll only be getting 10-15 dB at the higher frequencies. The idea of hearing aids is to make the speech sounds audible. Take a look at the speech banana (through Googling it)
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I would not mind having your audiogram.
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The hearing aids will help with the Tinnitus.
Forget âmatchingâ the audiogram, youâll be on a mild prescription, but that will usually be enough to reduce your listening effort and consequently reduce the underlying Tinnitus causing mechanism.
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If by chance you are a recent model iPhone user and have one of these headphones: Customize headphone audio levels on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support you could try importing your Audiogram and give it a go.
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Thereâs no real harm in trying. Iâd suggest costco just for the 6 month trial window.
That being said, Iâve worn aids almost 2 years. About 6 months ago I stopped wearing my right aid. My loss in the right is mild. The aids do help that ear, BUT, aids donât make it sound like normal hearing, itâs not quite the same. I found that with the aid, some things were better, some annoying, and same without. So I just went with one.
I say that because your loss level is mild so will you have an improvement? Probably. But the question is how will it sound compared to none. Hence the suggestion of a longer trial.
Good luck!
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Thank you everyone for your suggestions. My biggest problem is dealing with tinnitus and I noticed when for some reason I was able to make my left ear eustachian tube open up, I could hear high frequencies clearly and tinnitus was almost quiet. So I was hoping this trick could be done using hearing aids. I still donât understand how can a simple trick like that / more pressure in my eustachian tube restore my hearing damage basically to perfect condition? No ENT doctor was willing to discuss that, they just say, there is nothing wrong with your drums or eustachian tube. End of discussion.
The audiogram helps establish prescriptive targets, but for me the yes/no question on hearing aids comes more down to subjective handicap. I could see myself getting really irritated by even occasional misunderstanding of speech, regardless of measurable hearing loss. A trial period is a no-brainer regardless of the case, but I am optimistic in yours.
For my tinnitus patients, hearing aids end up being less of an attempt to ânotch outâ tinnitus, but more to give the brain more environmental and, often, âboringâ or âmeaninglessâ input to occupy more cognitive real estate.
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Thank you. That is a very interesting perspective.