I did get a dryer today at Costco (had been using a descant bottle to dry) because my Rexton Bicore quit again. 3rd time in 4 days and always the left one. This time I had shut it off for an hr to nap and when I tried to turn it back on it remained off. Put it in the charger too and plugged in still dead. I made it to Costco before they closed, bought the drying and they managed to get it running again but said we should send it back for a new one. So Tuesday it goes back. I think this left one may be most of my issues now with distortion too. The lastest adjustment is getting better except for the left one which seems to break up easily with many voices. Did a lot of comparing with one side off and then max volume and the left one is the one that really crappy, thin, garbled, etc.
I think that sounds like a good plan. By getting them both checked and in the right working order you can then check what the situation is before deciding how to proceed. That’s great you have bought a dryer. My son sometimes runs it through twice after a bike ride. Moisture can build and by eliminating it daily it can make all the difference. You may keep removing a little bit of moisture enabling it to start up, but it quickly becomes overwhelmed again. A service and running the dryer daily may prevent a lot of issues for you. Let’s hope you get some good progress soon.
phonak phone support may help walk the Audi thru the adjustments. Often they are very experienced and better at programming than the Audi, All h/she has to do is follow their directions.
Turns out my “fitter” has been working on hearing aids for 38 years, a user herself. She has a very good rep all. I’ll talk to her about if we should keep the working right one and just send this left one back. I knew it was not right from almost day one and the first fitter replaced the receiver which didn’t fix things. By going back and forth recently with zero volume, max volume, alternating sides and listening to a voice that distorts for me I’ve come to the conclusion that more than shutting off is wrong with the left one and the sound from the right one is pretty good…something I could really live with if the left one did the same. And always lots of chirps, static and sounds that just happen at times from the left one. It quitting like this is the best thing that could happen.
I’m with you, fbacher1, I love the florid failures. I hate the intermittent mild ones that are hard to identify and leave me wondering if I should do something about them (meaning “spend $$”). Big failures are easy to see and fix if there is a warranty.
The very innocent and confounding “failure” I struggle with is when only one battery dies. That means listening with one amplified ear. Understanding speech is a bigger struggle than usual, but I don’t know why. Then I realize, pop in a new battery and wow! I guess it’s a tiny, time-compressed foretaste of what hair cell regeneration will be like, if it comes to me in my lifetime.
I can imagine the money lobbying against any form of hair cell regeneration, lol.
Yes, BUT…small molecules capable of provoking hair cell regeneration means it’s going to be big pharma companies going at it. Once they buy the successful tech from the small biotechs that develop it, that is. Blindness and deafness have been cured in animal models. We know hair cells can regenerate if given the right instructions. It will not happen for every blind person and every HOH person. But it will come along. For now, as much as I struggle with hearing aids, I’m grateful to have them. The difference in speech clarity with and without them is night and day.
I’m all for re-growing hairs and no doubt they will crack this someday. I just had a fellow mtn biker (sorry Spudgunner, lol) who had ear crystals causing her balance issues. They put her on a machine that did some very complex whole body rotations to get the crystals into an area where her vertigo disappeared. Never knew! Crystals are still there (working on methods to dissolve them I’m told by my doc) but in an area where they won’t cause any balance issues.
I’m hopeful that if I actually get a good hearing aid in my left ear (sent the old one back after it failed to re-start for the 4th time) I can FINALLY make some progress. By turning one to 15 and the other to zero, alternating sides with this while listening to something that sounds broken up (when they both worked) I found that the right one is pretty good and only heard the high volume and very little if any distortion while the left one really sounded all broken up and tinny at almost any volume but the extreme volume really contrasted how very bad it was compared to the right. Yes I am so thankful it failed like this since they will not repair, it was easy to show Costco it didn’t work and I’ll get a new one. I kept the right one since “don’t fix what isn’t broken”, lol.
Yes, you GOT it! That is exactly what happened a month ago when I got my Phonak Life aids. REM fitting had set them up using some kind of algorithm, but I had her get on the phone with Phonak and the tech walked her through transferring the same set-up on my Marvel aids to the new Life aids. WHEW.
@fbacher1: It’s probably the damned electrical bikes making the dilithium in yer ears unstable, so it crystallizes.
And that fancy equipment to get the crystals moving to where you want? … We used to call them Wild Mouse or RollyCoasters
Crystals are suppopsed to be there. Should disolve on their own once they are out of the semi-circular canals and back into the utricle.
They don’t always do that for all people and in this case they were causing this lady severe vertigo.
Yes and some docs do it without the machine and there are series of specific positions the patient is put in to slide the crystals around. Maybe a good mtn bike endo would do the the same thing, lol?
Had it a couple of times over about a weeks time - Googled it - It’s called BPPV for Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. I did the recommended exercises, and have not had any vertigo issues since.
A number of my friends have had BPPV over the years. Some have visited ENT’s who often order tests including MRI’s. Nothing abnormal was found with any of my friends MRI’s and Physical Therapy was prescribed.
Can’t imagine having a BPPV episode while riding a bike, or driving a car…might ruin your day unless you have some of SpudGunner’s Dilithium.
BPPV is most common in the right posterior canal, so the vertigo comes on when you tilt your head back and to the right (or roll to the right while laying down). Rare motion for bike riding or car driving. Lateral canal tends to be more debilitating because the vertigo comes on with side-to-side head motion and you likely wouldn’t get onto the bike in the first place; nausea is often stronger with lateral canal BPPV.
My final episode happened while sitting stationary in a Burger King drive-thru line. I looked left and slightly upward at the display to check something and WHAM. It was quite difficult to keep my foot on the brake pedal while experiencing the vertigo. Thankfully it only lasted about 5 seconds.
Wasn’t aware of the Lateral Canal BPPV.
eep. Not bppv, but a good friend of mine blew out an eardrum while diving to a tricky scuba site. Cold ocean water rushing into the middle ear will cause some awful spinning. She said not knowing up from down 40m under water was the scariest thing that had ever happened to her.
Long time ago, l took a scuba diving course and made it until the last step, which was to dive solo. My instructor pulled me out and won’t let me dive solo until l get a notice from an ENT doctor. The instructor was worried because he knows that some people with hearing loss have weak eardrums. Well the instructor should have told me in the first place to get an notice from an ENT.
Wow, I’ve never heard of that.
My friend of course lost hearing in her ear for a while. I was concerned that she had lost something permanent. She was only concerned about how soon she would be able to dive again. 
The same week that I got my ticket, I went on vacation in Puerto Rico. There, I discovered serious snorkeling, and have hardly put on a tank, since.
But even free dive snorkeling can bust an ear if you’re unlucky.