My in-laws both got hearing aids 2 years ago. We knew my FIL definitely needed them but had no idea my MIL felt her hearing was impaired. They went with a local audiologist and they like that they can just walk in and get questions answered. They live in a pretty small town. They have a lot of friends who got them from Costco. Costco was less expensive but it’s a 45 minute drive and they thought local would be more convenient. Unfortunately they both only were them occasionally.
My husband has terrible hearing but I don’t think hearing aids will be his solution. His internist has said he needs surgery due to bone growth common in surfers and those who have spent a lot of time in the ocean.
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I am taking my dad to pick up his hearing aids next week.
He told me his dinner mates said since he can’t hear them, he sometimes stares off into space. He said not to tell them, but sometimes he just isn’t interested in what they are talking about. 
In prep for his hearing appt we were talking about the different situations where it is hard for him to hear. I asked about when he he had a meal with just him and my brother. He said “Don’t tell [brother] but he is hard to understand”. My brother mumbles.
So when we get the aids, it will be a good oppty to tell my siblings that in order to check if he needs them tweaked to:
- talk at a normal level
- don’t talk too fast (my sisters & I)
- and to annunciate (my brother)
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Thank you for sharing your father’s experience. Let me know how he adjusts.
I am happy to report that my H made an appointment with the audiologist for a fitting! It will in a few weeks. Insurance will cover 80% of the aids for an in-network provider and his is. H had no reason not to proceed so I am super relieved. I’ll come back after he gets them.
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It can be also useful to test the hearing aids in the expected challenging future use cases, rather than just the easy use cases. For example, if restaurants are really challenging due to a combination of background noise and the person you want to talk talking too softly/fast/unclearly/… , then tell that to the audiologist. If that challenging situation is so different from normal use case that you don’t want to influence default tuning, then you can create a special mode for restaurants that tunes things differently, such as reducing background noise more than standard and amplifying speech frequencies more than usual.
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True—everyday life is very different from quiet audiologist booth and the audiologist should be able to help accommodate (as well as possible) for this. Often there is some background noise—other conversation, machinery, music, etc but one wants to be able to hear someone talking to them and also detect sounds of danger.
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We had already covered the restaurant scenario along with large family dinners, etc - all the most common scenarios for my dad, and shared with audiologist. I just about the dinner mates because it was funny when my dad said that. And about my brother, the mumbler, because dad’s new hearing aids will be a good way/hint for him to talk more clearly.
Yes, mumbles are hard for everyone but ESPECIALLY challenging for folks wearing hearing aids. Two of my three brothers mumble, as did my former internist. I can make out what they are saying with some effort on my part but it’s beyond my husband’s abilities (he wasn’t raised with mumblers and he has some hearing deficiency but rarely wears any of his 3 pairs of hearing aids—not comfortable, etc.)
Good luck to all who are trying to get loved ones properly outfitted with appropriate hearing aids and have them WEAR them!
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I worry about my brother, who I know has hearing loss, and who lives alone out in the country. He says he knows he has a problem but hates the whole process of finding a practitioner and making an appointment. We will be together this summer at a vacation spot and I’m thinking of making him an appointment with an audiologist there. Not necessarily how you want to spend vacation time but I think he’ll find it worthwhile. He’s 70.
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Yes, he should see an audiologist. But all audiologists are not the same. Best practices say that fitting a hearing aid should use Real Ear Measurement (REM). Yet the majority of audiologists do not employ this practice! It’s a very simple technique which places a probe into the ear canal to verify that that what is called for in the prescription is what is actually reaching the ear drum. There’s no point in having the best prescription in the world if it has become distorted in traveling through the canal. However, to employ this technique, extra equipment is required, which costs extra money for the audiology practice. I heard some audiologists quoted as saying that the fitting software these days is so good that REM is no required. This is not true. Only use an audiologist who uses REM.
In Costco’s favor, they routinely employ REM. Their staff varies with just about all Costcos having Hearing Instrument Specialists (HIS) and some having certified audiologists on staff in addition. If your Costco has an audiologist, it’s worth asking for that person as they have more advanced training.
I’ve been wearing hearing aids for 10 years and have tried a lot of different brands, including various hearing aids from Costco. Costco has good hearing aids. My sister found that a pair of Phonak hearing aids from Costco have worked best for her, better than some other hearing aids which she received from a private audiologist. Although made by Phonak, they were rebranded as “Kirkland”, the house brand at Costco. I have found that the latest generation of Oticon hearing aids work best for me and are worth the extra cost in my case. Unfortunately there is a lot of trial and error involved and the 4 weeks which is required in most states, is not enough. The 6 months allowed by Costco is much better although it’s not treated as a trial but rather as a purchase & return if you don’t keep them.
If your husband wants to try over the counter (OTC), I found Sony to be the best. They actually provide self-programming so that they are not simply amplifying sound but are actually programming different frequencies. There may be other OTC products which do this and I would only try hearing aids which employ this approach.
Finally hearing aids are what they say they are, i.e. “aids”. They “help” to improve your hearing, but they don’t give you back your normal hearing. It’s important for hearing impaired people to understand this because even with hearing aids, we still have to advocate for ourselves and ask others to repeat things. Hearing aids will not give you back the hearing you were born with, but they will enable you to hear better than you do now without them.
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Hope your brother can provide a provider to help.
I will look into this further. Thank you for informing us!
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This link may help you. It provides you with a list of best practices and a list of audiologists in your area who employ best practices:
Any updates from folks who posted above? Or others?
At my last physical, PCP and I decided to do a baseline hearing test. Used the audiologist in the same clinic. I do have mild losses, mostly noticed in group conversations out at brewpubs/restaurants. Agreed to do a free consultation in July to learn more, though I’m not in a rush to get them.
Mild hearing losses can be helped by over the counter hearing aids without full fledged prescription aids being necessary. Sony OTC hearing aids are very good but have been recently discontinued as of April. No longer available directly from Sony, they can be found on Amazon and at Best Buy, last time I checked. An advantage of buying from .Best Buy is that they have a return policy. These hearing aids are self-programming; you take a short assessment of your hearing and set them up to match your profile. It’s easy.
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Perhaps I should read upthread.
The new generation of AirPods can function as hearing aids — might that be a bridge until you are sure?
Also, I’m convinced our generation will better accept hearing aids because we have spent so much time with AirPods.
Yes, the use of air pods will contribute to hearing aids being more readily accepted. In addition, they will be more readily accepted because they work so much better and because they’re so much easier to use since they are rechargeable. A little maintenance is all that’s required. And they’re tiny.
My mother’s hearing aids ended up in the drawer because they had problems with feedback. Who wants squealing in your ear? They had to be adjusted manually. The listener could be overwhelmed with background noise. And finally every hearing aid on the market today makes use of AI to some degree, which makes the experience so much more pleasant and the transmission more accurate. Even still, they don’t restore normal hearing.
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Yes, I think airpods are a possibility… could be a bridge (or proof-of-concept). In fact, we were just talking about that a lunch today with our daughter. The main disadvantage I’ve read about is that they fill the ear canal, so your own voice (or steps) could sound weird. But perhaps a first I’d just use one at a time for trial. (I have Beats for running, supposedly not so as good to simulated hearing aid. But my husband has airpods I could try. Timing at the moment is bad though because he’s recently been trying to find them.)
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One of my friends who has a hearing aid that she does not use a lot suggested I research brands. Claims the brand offered by the clinic audiologist we both use (can’t recall brand name) may not have capability to block out background noise as well as some of the other brands.
It would be helpful to have more detail about the specific brand and model within the brand, but different aids having varying features, including varying success in blocking out background noise. Some of the newer hearing aids claim to use AI to determine what is noise and what are the voices user wants to hear, with constant adjustments in real time, instead of the traditional approach of blocking out frequencies that are not associated with human voices and not in direction user is facing. One person I know who bought this type of hearing aid earlier this month says the noise reduction is far superior to any hearing aid he’s owned in the past.
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I use the latest Oticon, which uses AI, and I find it to do an amazingly good job of enabling me to hear well in background noise without making any adjustments. It’s all automatic in the general program. There is a Speech in Noise program available, but I haven’t felt a need to use it.
An excellent resource for getting information on different brands for comparison purposes and which also has a forum where actual users provide real life experiences and answer questions is https://www.hearingtracker.com
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