hearing aids/tinnitus

oregon101
Tue, 16 Jan 2018 07:45:28 +0000

Did you say what brand his new aids are?
Mine are Oticon OPN. I have used Oticon from the beginning–about 10 yrs (not sure)
and this is my third pair and the best. Their new technology is much better for speech recognition.

One of the most important factors is the availability of his audiologist and that the audiologist
is a very good fit personality wise. The learning curve for new hearing aids is a big deal–getting use to
the new sounds and, most of all, frequent adjustments in the beginning.
I had two out-of-insurance audiologists --they were just ok–insurance did not pay anything then.
I then had Kaiser, which I generally do well with, but the access to the audiologist was terrible.
Fortunately Kaiser is allowing a referral program and I have an audiologist who walks on water–well,
she is just fabulous and available. Fitting the proper ear mold has been super difficult but she has finally
done what no other before her has been able to accomplish.

I have tinnitus and did try the sound of the ocean as a program. I disliked it but have not tried the
retraining your H is going to do. Fortunately I have been able to just accept it overall. I feel like I have
the choice to be miserable or just let it go. So far so good. I do miss silence. I like quiet but it is never
silent.

I rely on lip reading also as my hearing loss is moderately severe on one side and severe on the other.
I have just discovered a lip reading program on-line that I am looking into.
We all lip read to some extent, especially in a noisy restaurant. I actually do better than my H
do to lip reading. You might encourage your H to develop this ability.
I expect to go deaf someday and signing is great except I would have no one currently in my
life to sign with.

And yes, I think your H and I both feel super frustrated when we cannot understand what is being said ;).
I think if you see him making a big effort to deal with his situation it will help a lot and if you see a positive
acceptance on his side that he needs to take the responsibility to try harder.

One last thought-I have recently realized how exhausted I am after a few hours of hearing concentration.
It is called hearing fatigue and it is felt as body fatigue. After a dinner in a noisy restaurant or talking for
few hours with a friend I really need to crash for an hour. You might check with you H about this.

Best of luck! Tell him he is going to have lots of company in the next decade as we age.