Hearing aids in but still not understanding words

Posted by lesmelbourne @lesmelbourne, Apr 16, 2023

I'm trialing advanced Phonak hearing aids that amplify beyond 2KHz tailored to my hearing chart, but still have trouble understanding some words. Subjectively, I feel there is no discernible improvement in understanding, or only minimal improvement. Who else still has trouble understanding words and why is this so?

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I have trouble understanding words also. If I’m standing or sitting talking to one or more people I’m fine but put some distance in between us like some meeting room and I’m out. My Costco’s used with my cell phone “live listen” on the app works pretty good with the phone acting as a microphone in some cases but it doesn’t help with the mumblers and the soft speak ones.. In a church class and other places some people do this low talk thing and nothing helps that. And no I don’t read lips or even try to.
The fast food drive through things are about impossible. The younger generation like to string their words together in a higher chirpy tone when they’re on these speaker things and I have no idea what they are saying and have to rely on someone else in the car to translate. In Huge convention meeting rooms I look for one of the wall speakers and set right under it.

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I was talking to a fellow the other day and he was bragging about his new high $ hearing aids so I asked him “what kind”
He looked at his watch and said “Quarter to six” 🙄

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Same here… I had my Audėo L90 HA several times adjusted but it feels like we can not achieve a good fit. Often times the background is still way too noisy and words sound muffled. I wish the app had more adjustment features to better control what WE are hearing. What sounds good at the audiologists office often don’t sound so good anymore once we step outside of the office.

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@cmodling

I have trouble understanding words also. If I’m standing or sitting talking to one or more people I’m fine but put some distance in between us like some meeting room and I’m out. My Costco’s used with my cell phone “live listen” on the app works pretty good with the phone acting as a microphone in some cases but it doesn’t help with the mumblers and the soft speak ones.. In a church class and other places some people do this low talk thing and nothing helps that. And no I don’t read lips or even try to.
The fast food drive through things are about impossible. The younger generation like to string their words together in a higher chirpy tone when they’re on these speaker things and I have no idea what they are saying and have to rely on someone else in the car to translate. In Huge convention meeting rooms I look for one of the wall speakers and set right under it.

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What was your last speech recognition score?

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@distortedhearing

What was your last speech recognition score?

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With HA 38%

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@cmodling

I was talking to a fellow the other day and he was bragging about his new high $ hearing aids so I asked him “what kind”
He looked at his watch and said “Quarter to six” 🙄

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😂

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@sunshine58

Same here… I had my Audėo L90 HA several times adjusted but it feels like we can not achieve a good fit. Often times the background is still way too noisy and words sound muffled. I wish the app had more adjustment features to better control what WE are hearing. What sounds good at the audiologists office often don’t sound so good anymore once we step outside of the office.

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I have the same hearing aids and the same issues. The VA audiologists have adjusted them multiple times and they sound good until they don't. I have molded ear pieces and I just learned that I can run a stiff piece of floss through the vent and out the other side to clean any wax build up. That and changing the filter often helps. Like you I cannot find suitable adjustments in the program options that make much difference. One last thing. They work great when I can blue tooth TV, car GPS, etc. Wish I could hear like that with normal speech.

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Not a medical issue but I was given back up Oticon hearing aids by my audiologist but with no wax guards in. She said they are Oticon Acto Rite. I think it is an old model but works fine. Does anyone know what wax guards work for this model. I have emailed Oticon with no answer. Thanks.

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@2longlife

I have the same hearing aids and the same issues. The VA audiologists have adjusted them multiple times and they sound good until they don't. I have molded ear pieces and I just learned that I can run a stiff piece of floss through the vent and out the other side to clean any wax build up. That and changing the filter often helps. Like you I cannot find suitable adjustments in the program options that make much difference. One last thing. They work great when I can blue tooth TV, car GPS, etc. Wish I could hear like that with normal speech.

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I have wondered many times why we can’t hear normal speech like we hear Bluetooth through our hearing aids. It comes through so clearly.
Floss and changing the wax guards does help but nothing replaces our original hearing.

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You (we) hear sound streamed from an audio source into our hearing aids better than live speech because of microphones. The small microphones in or hearing aids have severe limitations and microphones in general are not good at doing what we are asking them to do. They are only effective up to a distance of a few feet. They do pick up sound from much greater distances but they are not good at sorting out the noise from the speech. Sort of like our broken ears.

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