[TheForge] Hearing aids

[Daniel T Hayes]

Don,

I wear hearing aides, and here are my thoughts:

1) Get tested by a licensed audiologist, better yet with an outfit with
several doctors of audiology. Don't go to a hearing aide peddler, or anyone
else offering in-home testing. You need to tested/profiled in a proper sound
proof booth with the right equipment. You also need to be seen by someone
who can properly diagnose the cause of your hearing loss. If your hearing
loss was sudden, get in there now. Some causes of hearing loss can be
corrected but there is often a very narrow window of opportunity.

2) Hearing aides are expensive. There's a lot of profit, and a lot of quacks
in the business. It's unlikely that you will be happy with cheap units. My
pair cost about $4500. Insurance rarely pays anything toward the cost of
hearing aides (mine paid nothing).

3) Forget about simple solutions like a Radio Shack amplifier.

4) Hearing loss isn't like simply turning down the volume. Your loss is
probably quite frequency dependent. My loss is mainly in the mid/high
frequencies, and each ear is different. Your aides should correct each
frequency range proportional to your loss in that range. The more
adjustments the better. It's not like just treble and bass. The response
curve for my aides is set at something like twenty frequencies (envision a
frequency response graph with twenty data points).

5) The best units have multiple modes (mine have five) with both the
frequency curve, and the degree of directionality set separately for each
mode. One mode is "normal", one is highly directional (great for crowds and
in the car), another is for quiet environments (using this one in a crowd
will drive you nuts), one is for music, etc. Each aide has a button for
switching modes.

6) Avoid the vanity in-the-canal units. Behind the ear aides work better,
more sophisticated and more directional. Surprisingly, behind the ear units
are typically harder to see too (vanity does matter).

7) Aides with noise cancellation, similar to those Bose headsets are great.
For example, since mine amplify high frequencies most, I notice a noisy air
conditioning system in an office immediately. When I mention it to people
who work in that office, they tell me they never noticed. With noise
cancellation, steady background frequencies soon fade away. Hard to
appreciate the importance until your tired it.

Hope this helps,
Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of PlumDon at aol.com
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 12:39 PM
To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [TheForge] Hearing aids

Anyone else out there recently had to purchase hearing aids and might share

some thoughts and suggestions with me. It is shaping up as a dreadful
expense. 
 Guess I shoulda started wearing hearing protection twenty years ago,
but...
 
I dont really have any psychological or emotional problems about wearing  
them. But the thought of spending $3000 for both ears is creating great  
emotional stress. 
 
If you respond, write loud. 
 
Don Plummer
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