New HAs coming on Wednesday

Bottesini said:
I am glad they are working for you. I know for sure I need a regular mold and can't have open fit and need power aids.

So I don't think anybody bears you ill will. It is only that what you bought won't work for most of us here. :)

Good luck with your new aids.
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Thanks, Bottesini. I know that many of you have far greater losses than I but for those who do still find some help with HAs, both OF models and the full mold models both offer a significant degree of amplification. That is part of what makes them interesting to me and perhaps to others too. 55dB of FOG and 130dB of full potential in an OF? Pretty cool! Not up to Naida fitting ranges, but a goodly distance along the path.
From my other reply to DD, you can see I'm excited about trying out a different program more based on dead zone theory than otherwise. Being able to do that on my own is a welcome addition to my HA experience.
So, thanks for your good wishes and know they are returned in full!
 
d1rock said:
Deafdude. Dude. I just tried your thud test (after reading the dead zone material) and found some fascinating (to me) results. My left ear always tests worse than my right but they were almost identical with the left ear slightly better (!) at the upper limits of my hearing. Things die for both above 1174 but the left ear is better at 1046 than the right. Aided, I get the full 4 seconds up to 967. Now that I have the ability to program my own HAs, I can try a program that decreases the higher frequencies and boosts the low/mid ranges..just for fun.
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That piano thud test will let you know how much improvement reprogramming your HAs achieve. Do you currently achieve an improvement aided vs. unaided? Try turning your volume up on your computer speakers if you haven't already. Have you noticed anything unusual, such as distortion, offkey, hearing multiple tones, etc when you get to around 1000Hz? It's possible that reducing the gain/SPL/MPO as much as possible in your cochlear dead regions will result in less distortion and improved speech scores. Youll want as much gain as possible without feedback in your mid frequencies.

I don't have comparative aided/unaided Speech Detection Thresholds, but unaided discrimination results are 52%@65dB on the right and 40%@70dB on the left. One of the problems I always encounter is that when testing with tones and I get near my tinnitus frequencies, it sets off a level of inner noise that is greater than many of the tones used in the testing. Lots of false positives...
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How much speech(without lipreading) can you understand unaided vs. aided when you talk to your wife? Friends? 52% word score(would be about 87% sentence) unaided is in line with the scores of others with your degree of hearing loss from what ive read. False positives are a sign of cochlear dead region, the phantom sounds only add to distortion/misinformation. Youll be able to find out by programming different frequency cutoff points(such as 1000Hz, 1250Hz, 1500Hz, etc) and testing your speech understanding by having your wife or friend talk to you.

When researching various HAs recently, the transposition feature seemed to be a logical application of digital tech and is the one feature these HAs don't have that I would like to try. The Naida seems to be a bit problematic for some though and that makes me nervous.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to pass along your info and I am looking forward to trying out a practical approach.
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My HAs have transposition but it is of no use since the cutoff is 1500Hz. If your cochlea is dead at 1500Hz and above, all you will get are phantom sounds and distortion as I did. Does your HAs come with any close fit dome molds? Perhaps the extra gain youll get without feedback in the mid frequencies could be of help? Your HAs are great and the price is great too. I am a big fan of HAs, my HAs are also great but I wish I had more residual hearing.
 
Well, wow. I have just totally reprogrammed based on the thud test and it is pretty much the reverse of what had been entered originally. :ty: Feedbak is much better. Hearing is better and I gained tones in my right ear up to 1396 Hz and 1046 in my left. Before I changed things around and just gave up on 2K and above, the best I could manage was 880 Hz on either ear though the right could manage tones up to 1046. There is more fine tuning to be done, but a fascinating start to this process! I love being able to try all this out myself. I have some more headroom with the potential of the HAs so, wahoo.
Thanks, DD!
Yes, I have one more dome to try that is less open, not a power dome, but I can certainly try those too.
 
you are most welcome! It's sure great programming your own HAs! I wish American hears would make HAs for those with profound losses! Alot of people could be hearing better if they could program the HAs themselves since they know their own ears best. I have some questions in the post above(post #22)
 
In just the short time since reprogramming, my speech discrimination with both wife and son has improved significantly. A lot. Unaided it is far worse and while the new HAs in their original program improved things for them, I was experiencing men's voices as much softer and less distinct. No percentages per se, but probably from 50% to 85/90% in the same room. Still can't hear much from other rooms. Since bumping the lows and mids and cutting all off above 1.5k, I clearly hear cars driving by, a vacuum cleaner next door....all without those same sounds being too loud despite the big bumps.
The programming software has many options for altering things and you can do the aids separately or as a unit. There are also test sounds and voices and situations. When I first programmed a volume level from the computer speakers, I could decipher the recorded woman's voice @ 70dB. Today, after tuning I can hear her voice exceptionally clearly and actually turned the computer down so as not to disturb my sleeping family. TV volume can be diminished a bit but I will leave closed captioning on. I haven't been able to decipher music lyrics in years so anything that improves in that regard will be interesting, but I don't holdout any great hopes.
AmericaHears states their mission as bringing affordable high quality instruments to people who could not otherwise afford them. Perhaps at some point they will extend that beyond mainstream losses and delve into the more profound ranges. If they could even offer the programming module and software... I wonder how much better I could have programmed my old Oticons if I had the chance to try it.
Finally, the thud test unaided ends at 1046. Even increasing the volume doesn't get me far as tones either distort into two tones, then no tonal change from note to note then nothing. Aided is similar but farther up the frequencies. I think that addresses most of your questions but I'm happy to entertain more!
 
d1rock said:
In just the short time since reprogramming, my speech discrimination with both wife and son has improved significantly. A lot.
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Then you have programmed them correctly :D

No percentages per se, but probably from 50% to 85/90% in the same room. Still can't hear much from other rooms.
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That's an impressive improvement! Can you increase the gains any further without feedback in order to be able to hear at a further distance? Each time the distance doubles, sounds decrease by 6db.

Since bumping the lows and mids and cutting all off above 1.5k, I clearly hear cars driving by, a vacuum cleaner next door....all without those same sounds being too loud despite the big bumps.
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See if different cutoffs improve things, try 1000Hz, 1250Hz, 1750Hz, 2000Hz

AmericaHears states their mission as bringing affordable high quality instruments to people who could not otherwise afford them. Perhaps at some point they will extend that beyond mainstream losses and delve into the more profound ranges.
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There's only a tiny market for profound losses. Many of them have gotten CI already. Others are waiting out for stem cells. Their current HAs are mostly for high frequency losses but they have one for moderate to severe losses. Oh well, my Phonak Naidias are great HAs.

If they could even offer the programming module and software... I wonder how much better I could have programmed my old Oticons if I had the chance to try it.
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If many people can program their HAs better, then audiologists need to start selling programming module and software. This will save them time of having to reprogram the HAs over and over dozens of times.

Finally, the thud test unaided ends at 1046. Even increasing the volume doesn't get me far as tones either distort into two tones, then no tonal change from note to note then nothing. Aided is similar but farther up the frequencies.
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1046Hz unaided when you can hear for the full 4 seconds clear? Can you describe what the two tone distortion is like? Aided, does the distortion occur at the same frequencies? What frequency range do you hear "something" and does it sound the same pitch? All those are signs of cochlear dead region.

Was your hearing always like this and is it getting worse or stable?
Have you seen my blog(click audiogram in my sig) looking forward to comments in my blog and chatting to you, I have AIM messenger. You may post AIM screename in blog.
 
I have been able to spend a bit more time testing and eked a few more frequencies out by carefully and slowly making 1dB changes in frequencies I can hear in right around the edge zones. I am maxed (on HA gain) most of the way below 1.5k but I am hearing a lot more. Sadly, it isn't uncomfortable to me although I have gone from listening to test tones at full computer volume to half volume and even less for some of the test noises in the programming system. It really has helped to identify Deafdude's cochlear dead regions and then program around them. It is still somewhat counterintuitive because you would logically think that amplifying the frequencies you can't hear replaces what you are missing...but it doesn't work quite like that. I've got 7 more weeks of testing before deciding to keep these HAs or not, but I am quite pleased since re-programming.

DD: Unaided 1046 is not a full 4 second sustain, it is just detectable as a distinct tone. 880 seems to be the last pure, sustained tone with either ear and there is a decrease in volume and sustain each step past there aided. However, I can clearly discern tonal steps now up to 1396Hz at full computer volume. Aided sound above 1.5k just becomes, thuds, muddy or nonexistent. Unaided there isn't much of anything above 1046. I have read your blog (wow!) and will comment another time. I would be happy to chat but have never used AIM. You can be sure I will be a strong supporter of your journey through stem cell research and application!
I have had tinnitus since at least 18 y.o. but wasn't diagnosed with hearing loss until in my mid 30's. I have been aided since 1984 (almost as long as you?) and things have been relatively stable. I have lost some mids and speech discrimination since my previous audiogram 4 years ago. My left ear has also deteriorated a bit since then. My father was deaf in his left ear and despite all technological/biological advances in audiology, I hope my son isn't. So far, so good!
 
Another update....in the rarefied atmosphere of home, things were working well, but in the real world things needed to be different. My discrimination was not as good as I thought and relying on low end gain to compensate resulted in a lot of sound that obscured, rather than clarified, speech. Home programming to the rescue! Continued experimentation has boosted a few more frequencies to viable ranges and backing off on the low/mid regions has helped balance sounds better. Feedback continues to be almost nonexistent and my speech recognition is now recognizably better in most situations. I tried out a couple of noisy restaurants in the past week and found them to be OK. The HAs have four potential programs and the algorithm for noisy places is pretty good. I haven't tried the telecoil program yet, or some of the other options, but compared to my previous HAs, I haven't needed to. Next I am going to try a foam dome. I'm doing OK but want more...If foam domes help I may stop there but I have two other options above that in the form of mini molds (thin tube + canal mold) or a large tube BTE with conventional concha molds. So far, the comfort of open fit is so much better I hope I can find a workable tuning/dome combination that allows me to maintain it.

Finally, DeafDude: I have been following your blog but unable to comment upon it as I said I would. I will, but am not sure how to do that. Feel free to enlighten me!
 
Keep up the good programming! Any speech you don't understand, you can get from lipreading. I relay mostly on lipreading as my hearing with HAs is far poorer than your hearing unaided. As for commenting on my blog, what error do you get? Try leaving an anonymous comment and youll have to type in the letters to verify.
 
DeafDude: I left my email on your blog followers site but still can't see how to comment to you. Call me,uh, well, whatever...
 
I see you are following my blog. Explain here why you can't comment, what error are you getting? Ill exlain the solution.
 
I just can't see any link to comment, reply, message, email. Please tell me it is so obvious I'm crazy:roll: OK?
 
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