I had a very productive follow-up with my dear aud-guy today! I’d been trying a Widex tulip mold on my Opn miniRITE BTEs - and surprisingly, it worked OKAY - altho the quality of sound was like a public address system. But I had a “Eureka!” moment last week when I happened to just press on my ears and see how things sounded. Immediately, I enjoyed more midrange and low ranges! Like a miracle! If only I could walk around ALL DAY with my fingers pressing on my ears, everything would be groovy. But - is that optimal?
So that was priority #1 for me to address today. I’d read right in this thread about someone who used a “power dome” on their Opns, so I asked my aud-guy to have one on hand when I got there. Turns out, the Widex LARGE power dome is now on my aids. I was simply not getting a tight enough seal on the aids with a tulip dome - bummer, cuz they were smaller and more comfy to wear & for insertion.
Why Widex dome on an Oticon aid? Welllllll… Widex seems to make these domes in a smoke topaz color of flexible silicone. For some reason, I am hideously allergic to any clear plastic thingamabob in my ear! I’ve tried both clear and so-called “hypo-allergenic” hard plastic molds on two occasions during the past decade. Both times, my ears flared up, burned all hot and red, and I subsequently developed otitis. While there is a clear plastic, flexible silicone dome for the Opn, my aud-guy said about 1 in 20 of his patients is … ALLERGIC to them. <:-(0) I didn’t want to take any chances, so ever since Sept., beginning with the Widex BTE, I’ve been using their smoke topaz domes. Now I hope I didn’t just jinx it, but so far, SO GOOD!
The larger power dome offers a much tighter seal on these Opns. I am really pushing the envelope, and the best configuration would probably be the tube over the ear and molded plastic receiver. But I dare not go there again.
I will probably need a few minor tweaks, but so far, I have default Program 1; Program 2 fully directional for noisy env’ts; Program 3 dedicated to streaming the TV (which I’ll try later tonight). I would SO LOVE for this to be my solution. My ears are just so much better without the hard plastic “plug” ITE aid, which made them itch like the dickens by day’s end from all the sweating.
I am also getting my loss profile mailed to me so I can add it to my siggy here. Believe me, I am the QUEEN OF THE DEAF! Tee-hee, a hollow victory, but still - I get by.