About one year ago, the audiologist run a hearing test, made some adjustments to my 5 year old Oticon hearing aids. Furthermore, I had been complaining about everything being too loud, up to painful, with or without hearing aids. I had subsequently more extensive testing that showed that I also had hyperacusis, which no further adjustment would offset or alleviate . In the meantime, I got Covid for the second time and tinnitus went from noticeable to making it difficult to fall asleep and/or waking me up at night. The conclusion was, that none of the newest, most advanced hearing aids would improve the word recognition in noisier places, they would obviously not help to alleviate the hyperacusis and a cochlear implant might be the only viable alternative. I am right now going through a sequence of required medical exams to hopefully obtain clearance for the surgical procedure. By the way, I am 85. You may want to ask the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale to provide you with a copy of the audiogram and a written explanation with the criteria for disqualifying you from getting a cochlear implant, and discuss with them to run the hearing tests once more to validate their assessment that you did not qualify for an implant.