I have unilateral hearing loss all my life. I want to know about options as I am worried as I get older I could loose my hearing in my good - right ear.
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Welcome Cat,
Other than knowing what it is, I’m not experienced in unilateral hearing loss and its treatment, but I’m answering anyway mainly to bump your very good question back up to the top of the forum and hopefully generate some more replies from those who are.
You need a good audiologist who has experience with this, and it’s not an uncommon problem, so that is doable in most locations.
Treatment options can include: one or two regular hearing aids, or a pair of CROS hearing aids (which in the good ear is a microphone sending a signal to the hearing aid in the ear that is not hearing well). With your moderate to borderline severe loss in that ear, both of those may be worth discussing with an audiologist or trying devices for. You should be seeking a prescription hearing aid from an audiologist at least for the one ear, though, with this level of loss, not an over-the-counter hearing assistance device.
Some audiologists may encourage patients with unilateral hearing loss to buy a pair of regular hearing aids anyway; they then tune the aid in the good ear to not amplify sound nearly as much in that ear. Whether that’s the better way to go for the patient’s needs or for the audiologist’s sales figures is a question I have no experience with. I do know that many people with unilateral hearing loss do very well with buying just one hearing aid, so it is certainly possible. Depending on your budget, CROS aids may be a better way to go in your situation than just one hearing aid.
If you begin developing hearing loss in the good ear, and if your loss hasn’t gotten worse in the other ear, then a pair of regular hearing aids will be the way to go.
If your loss in the impaired ear becomes worse, there are other options including a bone-anchored hearing aid or cochlear implant.
One possible complication to treating your unilateral loss is that you’ve had this all your life. There can be cognitive issues in not processing speech long-term, certainly if the loss is bilateral. I’m not sure if there’s any cognitive issue when the lifetime loss is unilateral–maybe not.
Here is a webpage with good info:
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