Adjustment to late onset deafness

ty for the welcome...

Oticon Vigo....<3 the sig block!
 
no prob:) are those for profound losses? I wear phonak naidas they are super power and they come in ultra power as well...they have frequency transposition..so it takes what you can't hear in the uppers and transfers it to the lower freqs or to the ones u hear better in...there are also CI's (cochlear implants) if you are worried about hearing your family etc and if hearing aids aren't benefitting you that much. AWESOME that you know ASL tho I wish I did ..i teach my self signs from a book but I can't afford classes right now...someday:)
 
I'm not deaf, but am having fluctuating hearing loss which I'm adjusting to. (or shall we say trying to adjust to...)

You might also want to check out the looking for ASL buddies thread - lots of people would be happy to sign with you.
 
At least I am still here daily. I know what you are going through. You at least had the advantage of having leaned ASL previously. I do understand that you left it behind and have to relearn it and all, so it's like a whole new thing for you. I hope your family is willing to work with you and learn as well. It would be wonderful if the grandkids could learn ASL along with their speech just to be able to talk with you when you are not wearing your HA's.

I went from a mild/moderate loss at birth, to being total deaf at 43. I've had BTE's (don't know what kind, it was in the 70's) and ITE's in my 30's (Oto Sonic). Now I am one of the few rare people who is total deaf with no residual hearing. Drives my family nuts and my mother-in-law (MIL) doesn't understand how I can talk and still be deaf. Boy does she need to learn about daily life for a lot of us!

Welcome to Alldeaf. Feel free to come back and share as much and join in. If you have a webcam, then feel free to see this thread:

http://www.alldeaf.com/sign-language-oralism/75678-students-looking-asl-buddies.html
 
Thanks for the links -- I'll check them all out!

@Alicia - I got my HA's based on a deal my Uncle had worked-out with his former student - I paid $800/ear for them, which was his cost, and he donated the rest of his time which saved me about $4,300. (At the time I was being evaluated, I wasn't working so cost was a huge issue for me. I still have stomachs (that look like teenage boys) living at home.)

The doc told me that he was only amp'ing the freqs I could hear - not the freqs he told me I was profound in....he said there was nothing he could do for those. So, that's why, (he explained), I can't use the wireless feature of the HAs for like the tv or the phone -- b/c it only amps some of the freqs and not all.

This is what I understood that he said. If you think I misunderstood him, please let me know!
 
hmm makes sense enough..just make sure you get adjustments if you can if you think you need to...sometimes something may pop in ur head and you think "hmm that sounds tinny" and that can be tweaked by getting the aids adjusted
 
Welcome Mike. I am kinda new still myself and late- HOH... maybe new fluctuating loss due to Meniere's on top of it. (ENT is sure of it but we need the paper proof) Perhaps a little complicated to get into right now. It is a huge adjusting process for me as well. I am online most days visiting but don't see this topic in the top pages often anymore..... so I will have to check it more frequently intentionally! I have a 4 year old at home who has Autism Disorder and communication is our biggest hurdle. I learned some ASL as a child from friends who taught at a school for the deaf in Puerto Rico but with no practice have had to start relearning it all again!

I think the biggest adjustment for me and my family has been realising how much I was relying on my ears in daily life and seeing now how much I miss because they aren't picking up what I had before. Like my mom asking... "can't you hear your daughter yelling?" Which is why we are working on fundraising for a hearing dog now... the group is going to train the dog for window and door alarms and a bed alarm and my daughters cues so it will alert me to her behaviors before the problems are out of hand! (since I can't hear her open door knobs or turn on the bathroom sink or open the window or get out of her bed at night) I have bilat BTE's but with the fluctuations they are limited. Some days it seems like I am profoundly deaf (and one audiogram appeared like it). Other days I seem to be able to guess pretty well at conversations given the environment is quiet and predictable. And, not going to complain much about it, but people seem to be pretty predictable in their conversations... which helps. And apparently my lipreading was better than I thought.... not that it is good.

I am getting way off where I intended, but I guess that is the point of the thread... to vent. AH well.... one last minor vent.... I so hate the next step... allergy testing to find triggers..... blah. But glad to get it over with on Tuesday. Think the claritin may have been helping more than I thought... cause I miss taking it with all the itching I have had in this heat wave.
 
Welcome, Mike! I'm still checking in on this thread. My kids are home for summer so I've been around less than usual. I can relate to your experiences. I hope that it helps you to share with others who understand what it's like. The support that I've received at AD has helped me a lot. Gave me the courage to reach out to my local deaf community, too.

One suggestion--learn ASL with your grandchild. Young kids are like sponges and they pick up languages easily. It will be a fun activity and help improve communication. Even having my kids say yes or no in ASL helps me a lot. I wish that I had learned ASL as a child. Someone on AD can probably recommend ASL videos for kids.

My grandpa was HOH then deaf. I thought that everyone had a deaf grandpa. Kids just assume that whatever they have is the way it's supposed to be. I never thought of my grandpa as deaf. He was just himself. I bet that you're grandchild will feel the same way.
 
Does anyone else here think being adult late deafened sucks big time! I would rather have been deaf at birth than to go through this crap. I am really having a hard time adjusting.
 
meh i think its nice to now have the option when to hear things ... ull get used to it
 
Had my allergy testing this morning. 42 injections.... ugh. He thinks though I do have 8 allergens that they may not have been strong enough to effect the menieres enough. Still working out the test results I guess. Fun fun. Been a long day!
 
cdaigle, it's a very difficult adjustment but you can do it. Flexibility and resourcefulness are keys to adapting. Venting about frustrations here is a good way to blow off some stress. Hang in there!
 
cdaigle430 said:
Does anyone else here think being adult late deafened sucks big time! I would rather have been deaf at birth than to go through this crap. I am really having a hard time adjusting.
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No doubt....it sucks. You get used to it
 
cdaigle430 said:
Does anyone else here think being adult late deafened sucks big time! I would rather have been deaf at birth than to go through this crap. I am really having a hard time adjusting.
Click to expand...

There are a lot of adjustments to go through and it will get easier with time. I was lucky in the fact that I knew for years (30 of them) that I would lose all of my hearing at some point, but when it finally happened, I was shocked and everything. Now 4 years have gone by and I am dealing with it and I have accepted it. I am totally proud of who I am.

Just give it some time and know that we here on AllDeaf will offer all the support we can. This is where I got most all of my support though this ordeal.
 
AliciaM said:
ear plugs are not the same when you are hearing to really compare deafness you can kind of "hear" what its like but its not anywhere the same
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I know....I am LD. They do make ear plugs at a variety of different levels though. I wore them alot.
 
cdaigle430 said:
Does anyone else here think being adult late deafened sucks big time! I would rather have been deaf at birth than to go through this crap. I am really having a hard time adjusting.
Click to expand...

I wish the transition weren't so gradual. It would be much easier to adapt for me if I lost all the hearing I'm ever gonna lose all at once, then I could just adapt to that instead of lose a little bit at a time and constantly be in a state of having recently lost more of my hearing.

I think signing should be required learning throughout schooling for hearing, deaf, and everybody in between. Of course, interpreters may lose their jobs if that happened. That wouldn't eliminate the adjustment, but it would make it a lot easier. A lack of an ability to communicate is my primary problem since I'm learning to sign far faster than any of my hearing family, and I have nobody else in my life to talk with.
 
I can see how a fast transition might be good, but I think personally I prefer this gradual decline. It is allowing me to still somewhat grasp things as I am learning sign, before I am thrown into a world of silence. I already miss my daughters laughter a lot of the time and it was one of my most favorite things in the world. Granted there are many things I will not miss hearing at all.... the very noisey neighbors upstairs who stay up all night and sleep all day.... grrr.... Rude Rude obnoxious loud mouthed potty mouthed crude people who cuss right in front of me and my sponge of a 4 year old learning to speak by mimic-ing everything right now and then look at me like I was the one being obnoxious when we walk away to prevent her from learning that language..... Ahh a random pet peeve ......

Anyway... I guess my point was that although there are advantages to losing ones hearing at a young age, there are advantages to losing it later in life slowely too.... My friend who has been deaf a long time has shared with me how she thinks I have it better being very clear in my oral skills and her advantage being her asl. She mentioned that my learning curve could go at a slower pace, and be adjusted as needed, rather than being thrown into a world of silence. But also that I had people who could help me adjust along the way who had gone on before me, where as as a child she had no understanding of what had happened and she was scared and felt very alone with no slow curve to adjust to, she had to learn and all at once what silence was like. This isn't meant to upset anyone or start an arguement, it was just my take on a converstation I recently had. I am constantly is a state of flux in my life as well... and always feel frustrated and keep trying to put myself in someone elses shoes just to see if it would really be better on the other side.... and I am not sure it would.
 
Those don't sound like fighting words to me. I just think we're going through different experiences. I also have meniere's disease, so some days my hearing is better than others, so I run into issues dealing with people who think I can hear a certain thing, and then later people mouth off and call me a liar when they say something they think I can't hear. Their problem I guess, but I do get tired of it. That's rude anyway, say something in front of somebody you think can't hear what you're saying.
 
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