I have already paid for the hearing aids. They wouldn’t have allowed me to try them at home for two weeks without paying!
I’m going to check whether they have that HP mold!
Indeed, it’s a tough call and I’m getting more and more confused!
Another thought! What about downgrading from 330 to 110 for the right ear so both are the same models?
Update: Amplifon have Signia BTE Intuis sp!
I have just checked with the company about accessories. They don’t provide TV streamers. Com-Dex and Sound Assist devices are not available in Egypt as well!
When I’m outdoors, I struggle with understanding people.
I have the aids with batteries. This is a handy option for me.
Overall, I’m not satisfied because my main goal of getting new aids was to understand people better and reduce mishearing which is not achieved so far.
Zeeza, ask your fitters to MAKE THIS WORK FOR YOU. If you’re no better off understanding people in situations, then you need something more. Tell them to find a total solution with aids AND remote mics for streaming.
There must be people in Egypt who have total hearing solutions with accessories that help them comprehend speech. How to find them and get some advice is the key.
Maybe you could post a NEW topic here: “Live in Egypt, need total hearing solution with accessories for speech”. Perhaps one of the audiologists here can steer you in the right direction?
Don’t give up! My in-laws lived in India and it was VERY challenging for them to find hearing solutions clear up to 2014 when one died, the other moved to the USA. Hearing clinics were located in odd places with dark stairways to negotiate. There simply weren’t the trained audis there either. I hope Egypt has something you can use, or if you have the means, travel to the closest country that CAN fit you with a total solution. If you could stay for a couple weeks and get this done, it could be a life changer.
Keep us posted and best of luck in your journey.
Thanks for your reply!
I talked to the company about it. They told me “my brain” needs a few months until it gets used to the new hearing aids! The trial is only two weeks. What if I wait for a couple of months and no improvement is noticed/ heard? I paid a big amount of money and I can’t afford to pay for another pair of aids later.
Other people told me, this is “my problem” because I’m expecting too much from the hearing aids which are limited by my hearing impairment.
There is inflation in Egypt and many devices, not only the accessories of hearing aids, are not available in the market.
Finances would be the main problem to seek a solution in another country.
This probably wouldn’t make things better and it might make things worse.
Difficult decision whether to switch or not, and two weeks is certainly short. If you don’t feel like you have gotten any benefit an your old hearing aids are still functioning well, then I’d lean towards returning them and trying something else, but it’s going to depend on whether you even have other options. Also might depend on whether you pay a penalty for returning.
I don’t know that I’ve seen any providers on here from Egypt, but it sounds like a very different context from what I am used to.
I will see whether it’s possible to change the earmolds to the ones you mentioned earlier. If I still don’t feel\ hear any difference, I will take them back.
They will send the aids for check-ups before they accept to return my money. And yes, there is a penalty I have to pay.
What do you think of Oticon Xceed and Oticon Ria Cic? Could they be good alternatives?
If you have access to Oticon, then you could put an Xceed on the left and a RIC on the right and if the levels and generations matched they would be ear-to-ear compatible, which might be nice. I’d go with the miniRITE T on the right (with a custom tip) rather than just the miniRITE because then you’d get the volume toggle and with an asymmetrical loss it’s nice to be able to toggle the volume separately.
You are not a good candidate for a CIC. The Ria is quite a bit older than the Xceed.
I didn’t pay attention to an important point that I live in the south of Egypt. The summer is extremely hot so I think RIC might not be the best option.
What about BTE for the right ear as well? Oticon Siya, for example?
P.S. There are no accessories available and my phone is Android.
@Don - you mentioned asking for an aided word recognition test - is that something that most audiologists should be able to do? I have asked mine for exactly that, and she said it wasn’t possible. We’ve been trialing different aids, and it seems to me that that would be a useful differentiator.
Why not just an Xceed on both?
You need an audio booth with a soundfield. Not all clinics have this.
We have a soundfield but we don’t do aided speech testing unless there’s a special reason for it. We do real-ear verification, which is more precise. You need to ask yourself what the aided speech test is FOR.
But if someone asked me for it and offered to pay for my clinical time, I’d do it even if I didn’t think it was that clinically relevant.
Yes, its common. Every audiologist i have asked could do it.
Isnt the purpose of hearing aids to increase my word recognition? Dont ask me “how does that sound”. Show me how it improves my understanding.
If they’ve properly verified to presciptive targets, they know whether they’ve optimized your access to sound. What will doing an aided WRS, a dramatically variable test, tell them further that your day-to-day experience in the world won’t?
I told my audiologist i was hearing better with the domes than the new C-shell molds. She didnt believe me. The molds didnt fit well but even pushed in, i could tell a difference. I asked if she could do aided word recognition. So i proposed we do the test with the molds, then swap the receivers, tell target about the domes, and repeat the test. Both pair of receivers passed the REM test.
With the molds i was getting just over 50% (52-53). With the domes i was getting 67%. She had the molds remade.
I agree REM is a good tool to verify the receivers are working correctly, but i dont agree that REM gives you the best possible sound and understanding.
For example, i have dead regions. I might hit the button when i hear something on 4000 hz but i may not hear anything between 3100 and 3900hz. To have a shot at hearing as much as possible, i need heavy Sound Recover (frequency lowering). My audiologists are scared to death to make any adjustments, especially SR, or maybe they’ve been taught it doesn’t work.
With trial and error with Sound Recover we have it where im probably getting the best possible understanding now. Is there a way to get to this that is better than aided word recognition?
Sound recover should be verified.
If you found the domes uncomfortable then they should be remade, and if you feel like they are making you hear worse that should be identifiable–did they do a direct comparison with REM to see where the differences were?
But 50% to 67% is not actually a statistically significant difference on a WRS test, which is one of the reasons it’s a poor test. I trust that there was a real difference, but only because you say so and your reported experience is reliable.
Well, how does REM work with Sound Recover? Does it disable SR? The REM matches the target. If i have tones at 3000 and 4000 but 2 dead regions (DR) in between 3k and 4k, target still thinks i can hear there. Say my loss is 80 at 3000 and 90 at 4000. Would Target think my loss is 85 at 3500, where it may be 120? So target is 85, REM is 85, but im not hearing it.
That’s why i think aided word recognition is important. It could verify all is well, or it could show the person is not getting expected results.
You think that aided wrs would be more meaningful than your own self-report? Humans are phenomenal pattern detectors. If you say that you are hearing better one way, you are correct and the job of the audiologist is to trust you, and if they are curious to found out why. I’m saying that aided wrs doesn’t add anything further to your report, given it’s wide variability. You can detect smaller changes than it can detect. If a statistical non-difference in aided wrs helped your clinician believe you I suppose that’s good, but she should have believed you in the first place. That’s not to say there’s no place for aided wrs, but this isn’t a situation where it is clinically useful.
Verification of /s/ audibility confirms that sound recover is doing it’s job. Looking at your audiogram, the lowering would likely need to be below 2khz in the left and even stronger in the right to achieve /s/ audibility, so dead regions above that are neither here nor there.
Thanks for your insight, Neville! I’m currently at 1300 on Sound Recover for both ears and that seems to be a good spot. I still get very good results on one-to-one conversations in quiet environments so i think i will delay a CI for another year or so.
You think that weaker ear result is 100% proven given the asym?