Maybe you need to try your cellphone without hearing aids. A lot of people with a mild loss don't wear aids and can do well without.
That's what I used to do before my hearing got worse but it was because the hearing aid was not compatible with the phone. I now use a cell phone with a speaker phone feature which works great; Widex allows the Bluetooth option via M-DEX which is a tremendous help; if I don't have my M-DEX, I use the speaker phone. When I wore analogs, I changed the settings on the back of the hearing aid and that's how got through work answering calls all day, but no more though.
Mari the PM is available if you click on my name and it takes you to my page which should offer a link to PM me "send Lau2046 a private message." Folks, can anyone give clearer instructions to Mari on this if mine aren't correct?
Anyway, a couple of things: if you have and need two hearing aids,
they will not work regardless of the brand unless you
actually wear them all day. I don't know why your speech should be so heavily impacted by mild hearing loss. My grandmother had bilateral loss, probably mild to moderate, not sure. It was the result of years of working in a factory as a child around those loud machines. Unlike my dad, she actually wore hers and her speech was fine. My father has mild loss. He unfortunately never wear his, yet his speech isn't impacted. He does hears better on the rare occasion he wears them.
Moderate to severe loss and beyond is where speech gets harder. As a child, no one, not even my mother, understood my speech before working with a therapist. But my hearing was far worse than yours and we couldn't afford two hearing aids for quite a while. The one they could afford was not adequate for my loss and it was obvious until we got two with the power I needed.
You may need the wax guards changed on your hearing aid. The CIC are very sensitive and require daily maintenance. If it's blocked, you won't hear much and that's not your hearing, that's the aid themselves needing to be cleaned. Ask your audi for assistance if you need guidance. Again, if you're only wearing one at home, the TV and music (and your conversations with others) will be loud because you need two.
I really think this discomfort you're feeling is because you don't have a good brand that's right for you, but I understand your financial limitations. I couldn't afford Widex but I also couldn't afford to not hear, so I had to accept the debt (I work full-time, I'm not a student, I live with my parents, and I'm not paying off any debt other than the hearing aids at the moment). I hope to pay off everything after the winter; I bought this pair at the end of June this year after buying the Starkey in November 2011. Talk about being over your head in bills....
You're a student and probably full-time I assume. Once you obtain your degree, you'll be in a position to find work that pays well. If you have family abroad in England, Canada, or the U.S., that may be the time to consider leaving India to someplace where you can get assistance paying for hearing aids (or even free). With mild loss, with or without hearing aids, you won't hear great in noisy places. They're assistive hearing devices, not miracle workers. Remember, most average hearing people struggle too in noisy settings. You need to adapt to what you're hearing before it becomes comfortable, but you're not helping yourself to wear them for a limited amount of time, and then demand results. It just doesn't work that way. The more you wear
both, the quicker you'll adapt to the sound, and the more benefit you'll gain from them. Otherwise, you'll just be frustrated all the time.
Laura
