Hearing aids or no hearing aids, that is the question!

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JennyB

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I have been going through this love/hate time with my hearing aids. I basically went 3 months with only using them for maybe 2 hours a week. This past week, I used them about 4-5 hours a day. Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but comparatively it is!

I have noticed my tinnitus is TERRIBLE after that week. It doesn't bother me a ton, I am one of the lucky ones that can ignore it and sleep. This morning when I woke up, it was the first thing I noticed though.

Part of me wants to just put away the hearing aids for good, but part of me likes the sound every once and a while. People also pressure me to wear them and I hate that. It is up to me! If I just swore off hearing aids I wouldn't have that pressure.

I am not sure the point of this point...I am just confused.
 
It's your choice to wear them as much or little as you want. If you can still hear sounds with them, then HAs still work.
 
deafdude1 said:
It's your choice to wear them as much or little as you want. If you can still hear sounds with them, then HAs still work.
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hearing sounds is annoying as hell. I don't like hearing sounds. I don't like walking outside and hearing sound. Sound is just sound. It isn't speech, it isn't music, it isn't anything - just unintelligible noise. Sound does not mean hearing aids work. I hate the sound.
 
JennyB said:
hearing sounds is annoying as hell. I don't like hearing sounds. I don't like walking outside and hearing sound. Sound is just sound. It isn't speech, it isn't music, it isn't anything - just unintelligible noise. Sound does not mean hearing aids work. I hate the sound.
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I empathizes with you on this one. I have no use for them if people are not taking to me one-on-one.
 
if all I was hearing were just sounds/pure noise that do not make any sense, but not speech, I'd probably say screw it and go without (and have to live with the tinnitus).
 
I never had problems with titannus which is odd because so many deaf people I know suffer from it.

I need to wear them when interacting with hearing people or deaf non-signers. Without them, my lipreading and speech comprehension skills are at 0%.
 
If my job did not require them, they would be donated to some one who cared for them. I do not.
 
Jenny.........maybe it might be time for the CI. Weren't you looking into it? Plus it might really help with the tinittuas.
 
JennyB said:
hearing sounds is annoying as hell. I don't like hearing sounds. I don't like walking outside and hearing sound. Sound is just sound. It isn't speech, it isn't music, it isn't anything - just unintelligible noise. Sound does not mean hearing aids work. I hate the sound.
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Then you have the right to retire your HAs permanently, perhaps sell or donate them and enjoy the silence forever. Nothing wrong with that. I sometimes go without HAs myself. I do like hearing sounds though.

shel90 said:
I never had problems with titannus which is odd because so many deaf people I know suffer from it.

I need to wear them when interacting with hearing people or deaf non-signers. Without them, my lipreading and speech comprehension skills are at 0%.
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I rarely get tinnitus and when I do, it's brief. I am able to speak and read lips without HAs. My parents say I talk less loud and clearer with HAs though.
 
deafdude1 said:
Then you have the right to retire your HAs permanently, perhaps sell or donate them and enjoy the silence forever. Nothing wrong with that. I sometimes go without HAs myself. I do like hearing sounds though.



I rarely get tinnitus and when I do, it's brief. I am able to speak and read lips without HAs. My parents say I talk less loud and clearer with HAs though.[/QUOTE]

I get told the same thing! I CANT lipread without my HAs..I have tried it..I end up with migraine headaches and achy eyes.
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hmmm...I sometimes lipread BETTER without my hearing aids. Sometimes the sounds I am hearing are that contradictory to what I am seeing...
 
JennyB said:
hmmm...I sometimes lipread BETTER without my hearing aids. Sometimes the sounds I am hearing are that contradictory to what I am seeing...
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I think my brother is like you and DD..he lipreads better without HAs.
 
Like you said Jenny it's your decision. People telling you that you should wear them are probably, in a lot of ways, seeing it as a convenience to them, and not as much, to you. If I remember correctly you are deaf, grew up in the deaf community, know sign language etc. So it's not like you need the aids to get by. As a matter of fact wearing, wearing them only some of the time probably causes you more problems then not. Is it the end of the world if you stop wearing them, other then the guilt feeling of shelling out all that money for them?
 
Wow...nice Starkey spam.


Anyways, I love my hearing aid. Each person is different when it comes to hearing aids. Some love it. Some are so so with it. Some just despise it. The benefits for me in using my hearing aid are many and I love it.
 
Problem, ears are always irritated due to the hearing aids. Its always meds, creams, lotions - ugh. Even the sanitizer only makes it minimally better. I absolutely must wear them to work. I wish very much that I could toss them. Wearing that does not improve what little sound I have. Oh, and my asl absolutely sucks now. Grrrr
 
Do whatever you feel best/function better in. Don't let people tell you what to do. It's YOUR hearing, YOUR hearing aids.
 
I stopped using HAs when I was 16 years old.

I suffer from chronic tinnitus and take medication for this because I would walk like a real drunk person. The tinnitus does affect my balance.
 
hearingaid said:
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The General Director got the Master degree in Audiology for the first time in Vietnam and opened a new Special Audiometry Center for Children in August 2009 with complete advanced audiometric equipment.

Starkey Audiology Research Center – a place where new inventories are made.

SPECIAL AUDIOMETRIES
1. ABR
The new ABR (Auditory Brainstem Response) will get more accurate wave with peak and give clear analysis for the patients, especially children.

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ASSR shows hearing threshold for 500 Hz, 1 Khz, 2 Khz, 4Khz which are speech frequencies.

3. Cortical Test
The first test in Vietnam with HearLab
The test will be starting from 2010 when HearLab gets approval from FDA

The tests are following two:
The advantage of this test is to know wether infant/baby understand the speech with hearing aids and what is their cortical threshold. It’s necessary to check whether the hearing aids is weak or too strong or suitable at speech level, 65dB. For ABR test infant should asleep but for this cortical test infant should awake.

* ACA (Aided Cortical Assesment): To check whether infant/baby understand the speech with hearing aids.

* CTE (Cortical Thresold Evaluation): To check the cortical threshold.

4. REM (Real Ear Measurement)
The first special test in Vietnam will help patients get accurate hearing aid fitting. Especially, this test will be necessary for children who can not make oral response to the loudness of sounds whether fitting level is loud or weak.

5. Cochlea test with DPOAE and TEOAE
Advanced DPOAE test explain accurate status of cochlea from 1,000-8,000 Hz
__________________
Tag: Hearing Aids, Hearing Aid, hearing aids, hearing aid
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I don't picture Starkey selling pairs of digital ITE's in Vietnam for 6,500 USD
 
The whole business of shelling out enough money to buy a good used car for a pair of hearing aids irritates me to no end. I have to use them and because of the variety of situations I work in the digital ITE with a full on amplifier and none of the other settings works best. All in all my hearing aid experience has been a 30 year pain in the ass of not having what I need and not being able to afford the turnover that happens with them. Ultimately I understand your frustration completely but it is a nuts and bolts kind of thing really If you hear and understand and are able to function better with all manner of people it is practical just to wear them and be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
 
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