Please help me get used to hearing aids!

Hearing Aids
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Hi everyone! I am 42 and got hearing aids for the first time on Monday, June 2nd. I got the ReSound Vivia 9. I am having a really hard time adjusting to the hearing aids. The following are my issues. Note: I have small ear canals and she fitted me with open domes which are recommended for my hearing loss type. I also hate having things in my ears so she felt these would prevent occlusion. Any advice you have is greatly appreciated.

  • Despite my hearing loss I have misophonia (some sounds trigger strong, negative emotional and physiological responses). And, now that I can hear ALL the sounds, it’s extremely irritating.
  • The audiologist set the volume at 90% of the recommended volume for my hearing loss. Everything is SO LOUD! (I realize that is part of the goal but it’s really unnerving. I tend to turn down the volume every day.)
  • My husband also has hearing loss (not to the extent of mine) but refuses to get HAs. He still wants to have the TV volume as loud as we had it before. He is also annoyed at my reactions to him being noisy (he’s just a generally noisy guy). He tells me to “just take them out” though I know I’m supposed to wear them as much as possible to get accustomed to them.
  • People often sound weird. Voices - especially women’s voices - sound tinny. (The audiologist did make adjustments during my fitting and said we will likely do the Real Ear Measurements at my follow-up appointment on Monday.)
  • Being in a crowded public place is torture. I went to a networking event the day after I got them in a hall with a lot of hard surfaces. Even in the “hearing in noise” program, it was awful during the networking part of the event where everyone in the room was talking. It was really difficult to concentrate on the person speaking. It was overwhelming. (When there was a panel discussion with one person talking at a time was tolerable.) I went to another gathering on the 12th in a crowded room and I had to take out my HAs to survive it.
  • My ear canals get itchy sometimes, especially when in noise.

Any advice you have is greatly appreciated. I will also discuss in-depth with the audiologist on Monday. Thank you in advance!

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I have been wearing aids for 20 years. I had som of your issues for about 3 months. My hearing loss isn’t as bad as yours. I disagree with the open domes or domes of any type. Your hearing loss would benefit from custom ear molds.

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Wear them everyday, but if you’re getting overwhelmed, either turn down the volume or take them out. If your tolerance doesn’t start improving soon, I’d suggest having your audiologist turn them down further. Voices sounding tinny is because you haven’t heard those frequencies in awhile. Your brain will likely adjust. Be aware of what return period you have. It’s possible this may not be the right audiologist for you (way too early to know). If things don’t get better, you want to return them for refund rather than get stuck with hearing aids you don’t use. I’m not suggesting it will come to this, but just be aware of how long you have.

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I figure you didn’t get that hearing loss overnight. It probably took years. Knowing this you need to understand that hearing aids are going to be loud until your brain acclimates to all those new and loud sounds. Hang in there, turn them down to a comfortable level. You can turn them back up anytime as well.

With this being your first set of aids you are also lacking experience with hearing aid specialist and audiologist. I hate to be blunt but they are not all created equal. You need to be prepared to find another one if you don’t get the help you need before the hearing aid return period ends. This is very important.

I am not sure about that generation of Resound aids you have now but the previous generation had reliability issues.

You might ask your husband to get an audiogram. He might be surprised at why he cranks the TV up and is noisy. Us hard of hearing totally understand.

Good luck

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Congratulations on seeking out help for your hearing difficulties and coming to this forum for assistance. Misophonia + your degree of hearing loss will require the highest standard of care and counselling for you to be successful. This will include best practice audiology including real ear measurement.

Which sounds do you have most challenges with/are most bothersome to you without your hearing aids?

When starting to use hearing aids for the first time you brain are being exposed to a lot of sounds that it hasn’t heard for a long time. There are parts of your brain that are designed to register hazards in order to protect you. They will be paying attention to these sounds as they are novel or at least the way you’re hearing them now may differ from how they sounded before and your brain is awaiting a response from you as to whether they’re important or not.

When being re-exposed to sounds during hearing aid acclimatisation it is really important to maintain a neutral affect towards the sounds that you’re hearing and treat unimportant sounds as just that rather than focusing on them. Your brain will register them as unimportant over time and they will fade into the background. The more consistently you wear well-fit hearing aids the faster the brain can adapt: your brain works best with a consistent signal. 10 hrs/day usage is the minimum recommended for adaptation.

If you attach negative emotions to what are otherwise neutral sounds your brain is being trained to respond the same way in the future which if the sound isn’t rare and direct threat to your safety will have negative outcomes for everyday living.

If you are struggling with device-specific sounds such as hair scraping on the hearing aid microphones you might consider Oticon Real or Oticon Intent devices which include features to reduce or eliminate handling noise.

I hope this information is helpful.

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Hi. There are 2 issues to address here.
firstly, your misophonia which I also have. The simple truth is that wearing hearing aids in certain situations is going to make a lot of chewing squishing slapping annoying organic noises that much louder. Honestly sometimes when my wife is eating in front of me I feel like I’m actually inside her mouth and it makes me want to tare her head off :slight_smile: It’s really not her fault and I have found that the only thing to do is to turn the HA’s down sometimes. It depends on my general tiredness and stress level though. right now I would imagine you’re probably hyper sensative and stressed about all of this which isn’t helping.
One thing to consider, your hearing aids probably have an app on your phone and that app probably allows you to control the eQ or frequency balance. you might find that turning the high end down a little bit makes the noises slightly mor bareable.

Now the 2nd point, wearing the HA’s every day.
There are 2 reasons you’re finding it hard, plus the misophonia.
firstly, your body has been used to quiet for a long time and suddenly smashing a load of sound in your face is painful, disorientating and yes completely overwhelming. That is natural and completely expected.
The 2nd reason, is that no hearing aids produce natural sound. So the body is going what the actual hell is this horrible noise?

I completely understand why you want to rip them out of your ears. I wwanted to for a long time.

Unfortunately, and I say this having tried many HA brands, the only thing that will help you get used to the hearing aids is time.
Hopefully you have something like a 30 day trial of the devices.
Here is what I suggest:

Start wearing them in places you’re comfortable. Maybe talking to your husband in a quiet room, talking to a small group of people. If you have a quiet park or walk you can take with them. Learn how small individual things sound with them 1st, before throwing yourself into the louder things.

One thing it has taken me a while to realise, is that hearing all the noises because the device puts them there, does not mean you can understand all the noises. Sometimes, because of my particular hearing loss, my speech in noise is actually better without the hearing aids in.

If you want to try them out in a noisy place that’s fine, but do it in a situation where you maybe don’t have to talk to anyone so you don’t have that double stress. Go to a noisy cafe on your own, sit there and play with the HA’s. What settings help you? does the speech in noise help you? does turning them down a bit help you? just get a nice piece of cake and have some private time with the HA’s without anyone else bothering you.
Think of them as noisy children if it helps. You can’t just dump them but you can… maybe train them a little bit to be less noisy or at least make the noises you want.

What you’re aiming for with all of this is to find a couple of positive things that you can do with the devices that you could not without them.

I’ll give you an example: For me, I can hear my son talking in the next room, I can map in my head where he is when I’m wearing the hearing aids. I can also sense more of the world around me when we’re outside because I can hear further. The world feels smaller to me when they’re out like someone has put a cloth over my head.

What you need to find is a reason to keep them, something that you enjoy doing that you could not do without them. Does that make sense? with that small building block, you can build others on top of that.

I hohpe that helps a little bit. Trust me though, Time is the cure for all of this.

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Moderate/Severe certainly isn’t an open dome loss. Closed dome at an absolute minimum, with a custom vented fitting preferred.

The small ear canals will be an issue, but open domes aren’t recommended for your loss. Your hearing aids will detect the obvious feedback created, and take huge chunks out of the gain you need, resulting in poor speech recognition, and an overall poor experience.

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I agree with you from an acoustics point of view. Whether the OP actually has open domes or something semi-open is difficult to know without seeing the devices. I’m always reluctant to criticise other professionals without being sure of the facts.

If they have actually been fit with open domes I’d want to know the rationale behind this. It definitely isn’t something I would ever recommend for this degree of loss.

I would always perform real ear measurement with a measured RECD for all ears but especially small ears in someone with misophonia so that I know exactly what is happening with the devices and that there is no overamplification of sound.

With open domes it is less likely that this is occurring though who really knows without REMs being performed :person_shrugging:

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The patient is a first-time HA user, hates having anything in the ear canal, so I think his audiologist was concerned about the possible high risk of device rejection.

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I’m a newbie to hearing aids. I got fitted in December 2024. Hearing aids are not like glasses where your optician has you read the eye chart and he or she prescribes glasses. It takes awhile for your brain to become accustomed to the sounds you have been missing. I am wearing the Jabra Enhanced Pro 30 hearing aids, which are the Costco version of the Resound ones you have. To help you to get your brain retrained you should wear them as much as possible. I put them in after showering in the morning and remove them at bedtime. If they are not in my ears they are in the charger.

Of course everything sounds loud because your brain has been struggling to hear normal volume levels. It took me several months to become about 90% used to them. Some sounds even today seem too loud or just unusual. For instance, scratching my head near the hearing aids sounds unusually loud and alien as is putting on a polo shirt over my head. Surprisingly, urinating into the toilet bowl sounds extremely loud, when before I never noticed that sound.

One reason I had my hearing tested was because I was having problems understanding my wife.I kept asking her to repeat herself or asked her to stop mumbling. Also, she claimed I turned the TV volume way too loud. It just takes time to become acclimated. After six months most sounds are just beginning to sound very normal.

Like you, I don’t like having things in my ears and I also have small ear canals. The feeling of having the receivers in my ears became normal very quickly by comparison to the volume of sounds. I’m surprised your audiologist turned your hearing aid volume so high. If sounds are too loud, then turn down the volume in the app. Good luck and don’t give up.

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Hi. Thanks for the advice. I have asked my husband to get a hearing test but he is not interested and doesn’t feel that he needs (wants) HAs yet.

My audiologist has very good reviews. I did meet with one other first but they tried to bait and switch me which I didn’t appreciate. I will definitely keep your advice in mind about considering another audiologist if things don’t improve. Thanks again!

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Hi! Thanks for your insights. Without hearing aids, sounds like tapping (i.e. a pen on a table), banging (i.e. a hammer), or whistling are especially irritating. And sounds that are meant to be annoying (i.e. alarm clocks, fire alarms, etc) drive me insane

I am definitely trying to ignore “normal” sounds that are super-irritating but it is a challenge.

Thanks again!

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Hi. Thanks for your insights. My audiologist actually disabled other programs besides “All Around” and “Hear in Noise”, both of which have a “noise filter” and “speech clarity” function. In a VERY noisy environment, nothing seems to help completely but turning down the volume does help somewhat.

The positive thing I think is hearing the birds chirping. While I could hear an occasional bird before, I can hear all of them now and it’s kind of soothing.

Thanks again!

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Interesting. Thanks for your insight. I’ve had 2 different audiologists tell me that open domes are recommended. I’m also concerned that the occlusion from closed domes will drive me insane and cause me to give up on HAs altogether. Example, I cannot wear earplugs or earbuds with domes that go into the ears. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s maddening.

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Hi! Thanks for your insight. Am I correct in assuming that you are an audiologist? Can you please tell me what RECD means? I will bring this up with my audiologist tomorrow.

Thanks again!

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RECD - Real-Ear Coupler Difference. Difference between measured SPL (sound pressure level) near the eardrum and 2 cmÂł cooupler in test box.

Coupler is 2 cmÂł, which is about average volume of ear canal. However narrower ear canal has lower volume, so the same fitting in the first fit may has higher sound pressure level compared to coupler, because the same amount of sound energy is dispersed in lower volume.

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A measured RECD is used to transform your audiogram from HL to SPL which is important if your hearing thresholds was measured using insert earphones as they are calibrated for a 2cc coupler and not doing this influences the accuracy of prescription target generation. Most audiologists who work exclusively with adults don’t perform this measurement.

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Ask to try Starkey comfort buds. They have a special design that doesn’t apply pressure to the ear canal wall and may allow for a more occluded fitting without physical discomfort. They are sometimes compatible with other manufacturers products if Starkey products aren’t an option for you.

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Some great comments. Thanks - from someone finally deciding to get some hearing aids.

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Adapting to hearing aids requires gradual progress: wear them for 1-2 hours a day in the early stage, starting from 50% of the recommended volume, increasing it every week, and take them off immediately when you feel uncomfortable.
You can ask your audiologist to turn on the noise suppression function and customize the comfort mode with a mobile phone APP. Choose open silicone earplugs and clean the ear canal every day. Do real ear measurement during follow-up visits to optimize high-frequency sounds. Wear noise-canceling earplugs in noisy places and turn on the directional microphone of the hearing aid.
Communicate with your family and connect to the TV directly with Bluetooth. Do sound desensitization training every day and record the wearing situation. If the ear canal hurts or whistles, contact the audiologist in time.
Don’t worry during the adaptation period. It is normal to relapse within 3 months. Set small goals every week and gradually adapt.

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