Before giving up on the hearing aids, I would ask the audiologists to lower those high frequencies so YOU can tell if it helps.

Hello Sophie, I've read these other responses. I think you probably do have a form of hyperacusis and that you would benefit from having your audiologist turn down the sound on your hearing aids, especially the high frequencies. Then augment what you hear in these lower settings with captioning apps. You will need a smart phone for this, but I think most people with serious hearing loss realize that a smart phone is well worth the price because of the great hearing apps. If you have an iphone, you can augment your comprehension during in-person conversations with captions provided by Otter ai. I use this constantly, especially now when everyone is wearing masks. I also use it for any online meeting that is not captioned. I just set the phone up on my laptop with Otter ai picking up the sound. The captions are clear and generally, but not always, accurate. If you have an Android phone, you would use Google Live Transcribe, which is very similar. For making and receiving phone calls you can download Innocaption+ which live captions every call you make or receive and captions voice mail as well. The captioners are generally humans, though occasionally in peak periods they switch over to automatic speech recognition, which is okay but not as good.
I was a technophobe but Otter and Innocaption have saved my life.
One other point, you mention that the hearing aids become physically uncomfortable. I've experienced this. Sometimes the shape of the ear changes, if you gain or lose weight, or even with climate changes. Your audiologist should be able to adjust your ear mold so that it's more comfortable.
Good luck!

@sophie32
I have been wearing hearing aids for 40 years and , along with the other excellent posts here, I just want to add a couple of comments. I wear 2 aids and have a profound loss....the aids are Phonak Nadia ultra power.

First, lowering the high frequencies will not lessen your understanding of speech necessarily. I hear and understand better in the lower tones. I just had another adjustment last week because environmental sounds have become too loud but the sounds don’t hurt. They do interfere with voices and started to sound distorted. I have lost around 5 decibels which is a lot for me.
I asked my Audi to lower the loudness while preserving the voice sounds and making the voices stronger. She did and the easiest way to explain what she did is she adjusted all sound on a tilt level. Meaning, the high end of the tilt is voice and the lower end is environmental.
So, while speech is indeed in the high frequencies, these frequencies can be suppressed without sacrificing comprehension.
As a result I actually understand more speech after this latest adjustment. I even get some things through masks now and that is an accomplishment. It took a few days to get use to the lower tones of the environment and , while I can’t hear a tea kettle, I still hear emergency vehicles and my phone etc. And it is a reasonable non stressing stressing.

I use 4 programs...1 is the start up program for daily life...all around sound. 2 is the directional voice program usually used in a quiet one on one setting. I often switch to this program when I am shopping or in gym class because it eliminates most background noise.
3 is a directional mic with some lowering of background noise but more background noise than 2. 4 is my telecoil program which I have programed for mic only (no background)

I hope my explanation is understandable. Tell the Audis to lower those high frequencies.....While most Audis are knowledgeable, some don’t experiment enough or even know enough about what can be done with hearing aid programming.,and You are the boss when you are sitting in that chair on the office.

FL Mary