Hello everyone!
This is my first time posting, but I have been an avid reader every since I started considering getting hearing aids. I am 48 years old, first noticed my hearing loss at around 34, ever since it has been a very gradual decline, mostly in the upper frequencies. I went to see an ENT in my home country 1.5 years ago and was diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss, MRI was clear. About one year ago, I went to see a local audiologist and was fitted with Signia 7ax hearing aids. The audiologist tested my hearing again, and, surprise, my hearing had suddenly improved significantly - on paper, that is. In real life, it felt the same. My hearing aids were fitted according to the audiologistās (the better) audiogram. I will attach both of them for you to see the difference.
Ever since, I have been wondering if I am really getting the best out of the hearing aids. While I certainly do feel that they make a difference, especially in quiet surroundings, I still find that some people do not sound clear, my mother for instance. With these people, I mostly have a hard time hearing the letters āsā and āfā, sometimes āzā. In other people, I hear them perfectly fine. I also have a hard time in noisy surroundings - restaurants, airports, planes. I found that if I activate the āmask modeā, it helps quite a bit (the mask mode in Signia aids supposedly boosts the 2000-6000 frequencies). The noise mode does not make any difference at all.
My audiologist seems to be competent - she is the only one far and wide that does REM. She also said that her equipment is regularly tested. She made several adjustments, but they seem to have made things louder rather than clearer. Last time, she adjusted what she called the āmaster volumeā (I believe?) by a couple of decibels. But I canāt help feeling that all these adjustments, including REM, may be useless if based on an inaccurate audiogram.
My main questions are:
(a) If my first and worse audiogram were the ācorrectā one, would this be a significant difference in terms of my problems described above (lack of speech clarity)?
(b) With my hearing not being all that bad, is it still unrealistic to expect to hear this high frequency sounds more clearly? I realise that hearing aids cannot restore natural hearing, so Iām wondering if this is just a case of unrealistic expectationsā¦
(c) Should I ask her set up a new program based on my older, worse audiogram, just to try and see if this would actually make a difference? I am afraid that if she re-tests me in her booth, the outcome will be too good again.
My better audiogram:
IMG_7204.pdf (5.3 MB)
My worse audiogram:
IMG_8729.pdf (3.6 MB)