Hearing Loss: Come introduce yourself and connect with others

I retired in 2010. I functioned ok in normal situations but not in meetings. I wore one aid and was deaf in other ear. I functioned ok with aid, lip reading and captioned tv. My hearing got progressively worse the past nine years. Now at 73 my aid basically is for volume. Discrimination is poor. So the audiologist recommends testing for a cochlear implant.

I too have accepted my hearing loss and am reluctant to undergo the trials and tribulations of an implant evaluation, operation and followup. My excuse now is I am waiting for an ease of the massive medical travel commitments necessary.

Welcome Jim, this is a great place to learn from others even though you already have lots of experience with hearing loss. And good luck with your retirement. I retired in 2000 - and again in 2013 because I didn't get it right the first time. Don't do that to yourself.

Quote from Contentandwell "For me, it was the loss of word recognition that made things the most difficult." That makes a huge difference. Same goes for listening in noise. There seem to be many ways to state or describe the inability to understand speech. Audiograms predict (to a degree) how a person can hear sound, but they are less good at predicting how that will be understood by a hearing impaired individual. Some Audiologists now recognize that many veterans (especially those who have encountered blasts or TBI, traumatic brain injuries) have less ability to understand speech than their audiograms would suggest. So there is obviously more science yet to be understood in auditory precessing.

Hi JK, I think word recognition tests can be misleading since the audiologist can set the volume up too loud and in a quiet setting. Although it's a good test for comparison year to year. Mostly I can understand conversations if the speaker is talking directly to me. If a 3rd person enters the conversation, I cannot understand the speaker and lose interest.

Hearing and understanding are two very different things! I can usually hear sound, but it's rare when I hear the sound as actual individual words. Usually, I can catch a word here and there but miss much of what's said, even in a relatively quiet place, face to face. Groups up the ante, meaning that I understand even less, and background noise means that all I know is that various people are speaking without any understandable words. My difficulty understanding is due to Meniere's, which offers severe distortion, plus recruitment, on top of the ever-present two different tinnitus noises. Even worse, some days I can function well enough to at least understand the topic being discussed, but other days (or even a few minutes later) it's all gibberish, due to fluctuation. That means that people are confused when I'm having a really bad day because they saw me earlier when I was doing much better (or, less badly).

A sound booth is a far, far cry from the real world. I've never had anything during tests other than extremely simple sentences where it's possible to fill in what you can't understand. Tests never include names or numbers. Why don't audiologists use numbers in sentences during testing? That would be a far truer gauge of how well you understand. You almost never converse with anyone in a place that has no background noise, especially others talking nearby (separate conversation). The real world has constant challenges, while the sound booth tests offer simple sentences like, "It's time for lunch now."

I retired in 2010. I functioned ok in normal situations but not in meetings. I wore one aid and was deaf in other ear. I functioned ok with aid, lip reading and captioned tv. My hearing got progressively worse the past nine years. Now at 73 my aid basically is for volume. Discrimination is poor. So the audiologist recommends testing for a cochlear implant.

I too have accepted my hearing loss and am reluctant to undergo the trials and tribulations of an implant evaluation, operation and followup. My excuse now is I am waiting for an ease of the massive medical travel commitments necessary.

Dave and all, My main concern to getting a 2nd HA is to prevent ALZ! That prospect is Sooooo scary to me.

to JK and all, i've been in clinical trials for alz. I've studied this and what I've learned - Partial list: I don't eat after 8:30 pm ESPECIALLY SWEETS! I TRY TO EAT LOTS OF Dark grapes, (from study) small amt of cherries, - berries.
Crosswords r already in the brain. I must learn something brand new. ( I gave Mom school kids papers- she solved problem math and literature grammar problems). She really focused. That was her homework.
I take Arecept already. Gave Mom Arecept and Namenda even after she hit donut hole. Got meds from Canada couple hundred $ cheaper - but still $$$ but, worth it. ( i refuse meds from India ) Yes, meds from Mexico.
I push myself to socialize and Excercise (and Mom) - During caregiving Mom -I would invite people to visit - emphasis on including Mom.
She HAD to go to pool - flirted w men. went to lunch - shopping. She HAD TO WALK 9 HOUSES DOWN, no matter her protesting. Regretfully, she passed at age 92. Wish she was still here. I still want to call her.
Also, I had her write emails to family. Had her in charge of GPS. "This thing is smarter than I am"! Miss her Cunning!