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problems with latest new hearing aids & what to do about them.
Hearing Loss | Last Active: Feb 5 6:20am | Replies (59)Comment receiving replies
Many people who get quality hearing aids will have completely different experiences with the reception of speech. The true indicator of your benefit will be your speech discrimination score. Someone with a high frequency loss could have a 90% understanding of speech score and someone else with the same loss could have a 80% understanding of speech score. It depends on the damage to specific nerves which carry different sounds to the brain. It also depends on the expertise of the person doing the programming. Often, it is not that the brand is better but that the professional doing the programming needs to have the "art" besides the science. Never hurts to pay a little and go get a second opinion.
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Proper hearing aid fitting is tricky. The fitter's skills are important. Yes, people with similar audiograms are likely to have different experiences with hearing instruments. It's important to work hard to adjust to new hearing instruments. Ask for help from the audiologist as much as necessary. If you are not getting enough help from new hearing instruments return them and ask to try a different brand/model.
It's important to understand that the nerves related to hearing are generally not the issue, and are usually functional. The problem is with damaged hair cells within the cochlea. Think of those tiny hair cells as the keys on a large piano keyboard that starts to deteriorate one sound at a time. Many are led to believe that 'nerve damage' has caused their hearing loss when that is not the case. The reason cochlear implants work is because they bypass those damaged hair cells in the cochlea and are able to stimulate the auditory nerve that has been sitting there dormant.