Hello Tony,

Thank you for taking the time to provide me with additional points to consider in this maze of picking effective hearing aids. I’ve already started going through the pertinent posts on hearingtracker.com that you recommended and I’m finding it very helpful. One tread I finished had every audiologist agreeing that a hearing aid style cannot be determined by an audiogram alone. Activity level, types of
hearing environments, personal preference and other factors need to be considered according to what I read.
And you are spot on that I am being vain about appearance. I initially wanted absolutely no part of the aid to be visible. But after going over all of the features that I would like (streaming, directional microphones, battery life, and some others I was told they would only be available on the in the canal type (ITC). So they would be visible in the opening of my ears but I was willing to compromise on the vanity to get the features I wanted. But my audiologist still steered me away from them because I believe the
ease of fitting the on the ear type. I just can’t bring myself to go with those and as a full time glasses wearer I don’t want to have them sitting up there competing for space either. I also learned from hearingtracker that ITC types CAN also come with tinnitus maskers too. She claimed they were very limited in the market. After reading that tread though I’m wondering if I’ll need it. Many of the
audiologists stated that most of their patients found at least some relief from just getting hearing aids that amplified sounds for their hearing loss. The new sounds reintroduced to the ear help mask the tinnitus without
adding an artificial masker.