Those who have had an improvement in speech comprehension, what was the secret?

Hearing Aids
21

If I turn up the volume too much I get feedback when I cover my ear with my hand; then I cut back until the feedback is gone.

After I leave the audiologist I sometimes find that the volume is too low. One clue…I get quite tired mid afternoon when i’m working trying to figure out what people are saying. So I turn the volume a notch and see…

My comparison…hearing for me was like watching “Wheel of Fortune” Except all the letters are blank. Hard work figuring things out.

Things are better now…

DaveL

22

That is a difficult question. 10 years ago I gave up after trying almost all local practices. I drove a couple of hours to Costco to save money. Lately I was concerned my word recognition differences could indicate a medical issue. I sought the best care I could find at a University. They required a hearing test. Their test showed much higher word recognition and the medical professional thought properly adjusted aids would work. I am now going through their audiology department with good results.

23

Ahh, I see I see. Then you are probably not a surgical candidate.

The configuration of your hearing loss isn’t that uncommon in patients with conductive loss resulting from otosclerosis/ossicular fixation in which case when you test bone conduction thresholds (send the signal directly through the skull via vibration) their inner ear is actually hearing better. In that case, you can sometimes replace some of the bones in the middle ear with prosthetics and resolve the air-bone gap, and improve hearing thresholds.

I think that’s unlikely in your case. Meningitis loss is typically sensorineural not conductive. . . Or at least not middle ear conductive. Meningitis can cause ossification in the cochlea itself which in turn causes hearing loss (and may account for the odd configuration), but it is not resolvable with surgery.

Edit: Let me add that your hearing loss is absolutely tricky. Hopefully you can form a good relationship with a patient, experienced audiologist. Your hearing is largely unaidable above 2 kHz, particularly in the left ear, which means to access sounds like /s/ or /t/ you’ll always need good visual support (lip-reading), although frequency lowering may help. I expect with that big low frequency asymmetry noise is also extra-challenging for you, so definitely look into trialing a Roger device and squeezing the best possible use out of it if you haven’t already. You should be able to access 2 kHz well, which is good for speech, but the gain you need to support hearing around 1 kHz may cause some upward spread of masking that can muddy things up at 2 kHz, so you may need to experiment with what degree of low frequency gain works best for you.

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24

Yes. I faced the same problem for 20 years. Sorry, I have only visited Kansas City (or more accurately, Overland Park) a couple of times and my audi is in Toronto, Canada. My journey consisted of changing audis almost annually, not because I fired them, but because the practice couldn’t keep hold of them. Eventually I tried a different practice and even met one of my previous audis!

What led me to my current audi, who I would not want to change, was that he was referred to me by a forum member @JordanK who also lives in Toronto and who is very active on the forum and seemed to know what he was talking about. So my suggestion is to keep active in the forum, get to know those members who seem to be on your wavelength and hopefully they have also included their location. You could private message them and ask for a recommendation, like I did. Other than that, keep mentioning wherever you post that you are looking for a KS audi. Good hunting and good luck!

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25

Hi Neville, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge about these things! I’m continually blown away by how much y’all know about all the complex details of hearing loss!

As you said, I’ve also come to the conclusion that my hearing loss is going to be very tricky, which makes me wonder if a Costco audiologist is going to be up to par. I only went to Costco because the price point is very appealing, and I thought I’d start there. I have a 6-month trial, so I’ll see how he manages it. So far, I’m not overly impressed with the Rextons BiCores, but they may just not be appropriate for my oddball hearing loss :laughing:

Not sure if the Roger devices pair with the Rexton, I need to research that :thinking:

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26

Roger is Phonak only. If you are not pleased with your Costco hearing center you can go to a different store for no additional charge.

27

To answer the question in title - BT direct streaming in my HAs :slight_smile: a lot of it

My comprehension will never be great, however, the time I can survive before getting exhausted is now significantly longer. Last week I’ve done 4 hour with microphone in really happy loud crowd at a dinner party of about 15 people around big table and I could follow 90% of conversations (all but one person were new to me, and we spoke in English, but we’re all immigrants, that means various accents all over the place which is/was hard for me even in quiet).

I definitely felt included, but I did miss up few points and jokes. I spoke with several people around my part of the table whilst the other part of the table was loud and making jokes, so really really difficult situation for our tech. Two years ago when I got my aids and microphones I’d shut down and just smile in such situations. Hell, table of 4 where I know all of us at not too loud restaurant was hard, I’d miss quite a lot more of what was being said.

Yes, microphones help to some degree in very difficult situations, aids help in less difficult ones, but as @Neville taught me some time ago - you need to train your brain. And I see that my almost daily streaming with this and that, mostly clear speech - it definitely yielded results.

I could be more active with training, I usually stream something for half an hour (currently simpsons) daily, and then few times a week some podcasts for 1-2 hours. So I’d say at least 1-2 hours on bad weeks for streaming, and maybe an hour for phone calls. And I’m lazy otherwise, a lot of times I use them to mute them to have less sounds :rofl: But, I’m doing this for two years now, so THAT’s what matters it seems.

When I joined here with my quest with new aids, I would be exhausted after half an hour of such dinner party. Hell I wouldn’t even attempted that because of previously experienced anxieties in less intense environments. Feeling of being left out of the conversation is not easy to cope with.

Now I felt tired (like my head was a baloon), but after we got out of the apartment felt a bit better, also was able to drive for an hour (I recently started driving, so still under a lot of anxiety, and this was my first highway ride, and our car is loud but less than this party), and we watched some streaming at home. So it didn’t put me out of service for days, I just needed a bit of breaks. And I totally enjoyed the company and conversation and I remembered a lot about people.

Also, I’ve realised several months ago that I have ADHD with autism, plus anxiety and so on and so forth.
And still, I had a great time.

So my single advice to everyone would be - do BT streaming of as clear voices as possible, so podcasts, audiobooks, tv shows that has some dialogs to follow. And do that daily, even for a little bit, but if you have time and will for more, do as much as you can, it will pay out with fat interests.

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28

The audiologist is so important.

When I bought my first hearing aid I had selected my audiologist/provider from the Yellow Pages.

Ten years later I questioned hearing experts where I work, and they referred me to an exceptional audiologist. She was exceptional.
When she sold her business, I asked the same people and was referred to another audiologist. They never performed; they sold me my second set of Phonaks. Those were terribly set up.

My current audiologist is extremely hard working; he has accomplished miracles for me getting the hearing aids I now have. The setup has taken a long time, and I don’t know why.

I’m only saying so in hopes that my experience and frustration helps you make better decisions after reading my note.

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29

I networked.

My thought: my employer teaches kids. 150,000 of them. 265 schools. So I asked until I found out who the hearing disabled expert was. She has since retired. I’m still in touch with the person who does this wonderful work.
My audiologist who provided my first real hearing aids was referred to me by this lady. Every visit to her office was a success. The hearing aids were magic! When she sold her business I needed to find another audiologist. I wasn’t as successful. I stayed too long; even bought hearing aids from them that were a disaster. When I needed a referral again, I asked again.

My new audiologist got me brand new hearing aids!

So my answer that worked for me is “networking”

DaveL

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30

You are on one of the largest cities in North America. Many of us are not so fortunate. I remember those days growing up in Metropolitan Toronto.

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31

The smoothest pairing to the Roger system would be via Phonak/Unitron. You can connect any hearing aid with a telecoil via a Roger neckloop, but the audio isn’t as good. Other hearing aids have ways to connect that are variously priced and more or less unweildy, for example you can connect a Roger X receiver to the Resound multi mic or the Oticon edumic and stream that way.

Ah, your route through the schools would suggest that you were referred to a strong pediatric audiologist. I find that interesting.

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32

Neville I truly appreciate your comment. I never thought of that.

Beats the heck out of finding a supplier/audilogist through the Yellow Pages or Yelp! Found my first one for my make-believe first hearing aid through the yellow pages.

I’m still be lost finding a good audiologist or Sleep Apnea supplier or Sleep Doc.

My current audiologist is amazing. He’s been very generous and very hard working. His patients seem to be my age or so. Mid 70’s?

33

You have a tuff audiogram to fit.

I found the trick to getting the most out of the aids for word understanding is to be very sure they are fit properly for your hearing loss, critical.

Then the aids need to be worn all waking hours.

Then regularly get yourself out into life and live.

If that doesn’t help maybe CI is your answer. It was for me.

Good luck

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34

When I had trouble getting good care with sleep apnea, I asked everyone with mask strap marks that I noticed two questions.

  • Do you have a good sleep doc?
  • Are you happy with your equipment supplier?

Worked for me.

With hearing aids–they are easy to notice. I ask similar questions just in case I need to switch.

35

implanting your self with a CI plain and simple jumps my speech recognition score from near 0% to 80-100%…

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36

Down here most all durable equipment suppliers work to top off insurance wherever possible. When you have a 20% co-pay, that’s not good. I use Amazon to buy supplies when needed. Many people DIY CPAP adjustments. It is not too difficult.

You like this forum, try CPAP and Sleep Apnea Message Board | CPAPtalk.com

37

Thanks for your suggestion. I haven’t been on that forum for some time. It’d be a good time to take a look around again.

38

I haven’t been there in a while either but Pugsy is very helpful.

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39

Answering to the OP question: I now wear Oticon More 1’s

Ok, that said, I do not think the brand of HA’s matters that much.

Reading lips in a restaurant is what helps me the most

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40

I was going to quickly respond that Bubbly definitely isn’t a CI candidate, but then I had a second look at that right ear and thought maybe. If she really were optimally fitted in the right ear and still was not getting much HA benefit and speech recognition in that ear was really poor, she could be? Left ear is not a candidate.

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