Did you ever stop and think this could be due to the fact that you have profound loss and your father does not?
Face it. There are going to be some environmental sounds you will not hear -- with or without hearing aids.
My audiologist thinks theres a possibility he could give me aided hearing equal to what a hearing person like my dad hears. Remember that at low frequencies, my hearing loss is not profound, only severe.
If this is true, how come it didn't work for me?
My audiologist would have thrown in the towel upon testing you with his audiometer and told you that a 120db HL can't be touched with any HAs, period. If you told him you were getting too much distortion with better than 60-70db aided, he probably would have told you at this point a CI would very likley give better results. If I were an audiologist, I would say the same. Id let you make the choice, if you still choose HAs, id say fine and sell you a pair. If you choose CI, I would understand and respect your choice and not force HAs on you.
deafdude1 - My HA is maxed out because it's a preference of mine and it helps me greatly. I'm even able to understand someone when they talk (not yell, but talk) to me across the small parking lot at work. If someone else with my same hearing loss prefers less noise, then they'll probably want less gain.
I am still trying to understand why not everyone is helped/benefitted by max gain, see my thread on this. If another person with your audiogram wants less gain, they would not hear someone across the parking lot. It would be their choice and they can use any reason for that choice. However they should not complain about anything they can't hear, after all, they chose less gains!
I have no idea WHY you are obsessed with the whole gain deal - more gain doesn't always mean better hearing. In fact, more gain may lead to distortion in echoey environments and reduce your ability to understand speech in noise.
It improved your hearing on all counts and probably will do the same for me. I will have to ask my audiologist how can it be possible that paradoxically with more gains, they end up hearing less. Distortion has been mentioned but how do you, I and many others explain that despite distortion, we still end up hearing better anyway?
It's all about preference, bro and what you want to hear. Not about gain. IF gain is what is required to get you to hear what you want to hear with your hearing aid, then your audiologist will change to the appropriate settings for that.
The irony then stands if a person wants to hear less than a HA is capable of, yet still complain they can't hear and/or think about CI, that they should first reprogram the HA. In your case, your complaints are valid since you weren't hearing what you wanted to hear. But some people have their own preference of what they want to hear and may not opt for max gains. I will have to learn not to be so quick in recommending everyone ask for max gains.
This is a little different, but I feel the same way about 6 high frequency electrodes being turned off on each of my CIs. Some may think that being unable to hear 6 high frequencies with each implant makes speech more difficult to understand and that I'm missing out on alot of sounds, but I'm not. I'm hearing better than I ever have before. Speech sounds crisp and clear and music sounds just as wonderful as it did before I wore hearing aids.
So it could be entirely possible a person with no residual hearing above 2000Hz may end up not being able to tolerate hearing above 2000Hz with CI. The second thing is if you aren't missing out, then perhaps many others with no residual hearing above 2000Hz likewise aren't missing out. Ive even been told by my parents that im not missing much by not being able to hear high frequencies, go figure.
