Hearing Loss: Come introduce yourself and connect with others

I have the mid-range (cookie bite) loss and have never had satisfactory correction. My source of care is the UC San Francisco Audiology clinic and I am fortunate to be able to afford the most sophisticated hearing aids. Each time I get new ones, every 3-5 years, there is some improvement, but not enough to hear my husband or TV well. I'm so frustrated. But it's time for another update.

Does anyone have any better experience with this type of hearing loss?

Welcome Rena. I see that you also connected with others in the discussion about mid-range hearing loss here:
- Cookie Bite Hearing Loss https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/cookie-bite-hearing-loss/

Hi, @renajoy Welcome to Connect.
Have you tried a different audiologist? My hearing loss is much more severe than yours, severe in one ear, profound in the other, I can't expect things to be perfect but prior to my hearing loss being as bad as it is now I could hear reasonably well with my hearing aids.

I assume that UC San Francisco is highly regarded but even the best can miss something sometimes. I think my audiologist is excellent but my daughter convinced me to go to a different one in NYC who is well known in the field. My daughter thought she would be able to help me more than my local audiologist. Well, the NYC audiologist agreed with my local audiologist! It was reassuring though to get her input too and know I was doing what was most helpful, and using hearing aids best suited to my hearing loss. It's difficult to have to face that hearing aids will never give us the same hearing as natural hearing. They are not like eyeglasses.
JK

Hi, I'd love some input. Yesterday my right HA was down to 7% charge after about fifteen hours of use. I called Phonak and they said a charge typically lasts ten to twelve hours. Is this charge length typical? Most people are awake much longer than that.

Also, I'm not noticing substantiative improvement in my hearing with the HAs. The other day I accidentally left them out for a couple hours and didn't even notice. The one thing I thought I'd hear post-HA, our cat's "silent meow," is still silent. I found my audiogram shocking since I'd only noticed a couple small things but the audiologist said she checked each point multiple times plus the symmetry also supported it being real. I'm only persevering to preserve my brain's ability to utilize HAs in the future. It makes me wonder, though, if I can hear without them, which means I'm utilizing that part of the brain, am I at risk of losing any capacity at this point?

The battery life on my rechargeable Phonaks is noticeably less than the Oticons I have. I usually wear them from 7 AM to about 9 PM and they are sometimes into the "red" battery condition. I don't do a lot of streaming either. The Phonaks end the day with about 25% less battery charge than the Oticons. There are a number of other things I don't like about them too, but they do perform well for me. I can list the good and bad of each brand if you'd like.

I would love to hear the pros and cons of both, thank you!

I'd like to hear more about the differences in rechargeable hearing aids too. I am still using disposable batteries in my hearing aid. (My cochlear processor uses rechargeables though.) How does one cope with a hearing aid that gives less than 16 hours/day service? What happens if you are traveling, or camping or unable to charge them?

@julieo4

My Audi says she gets a lot of complaints from her clients regarding the life span of rechargeable hearing aids among the most popular brands. This is something she tells them upfront. My 675 disposable batteries for my Phonaks last 20 days on average with 14 or more hours of daily wear. I only use Power One brand made in Germany.

I will ask her next time if she knows of certain brands of rechargeable aids that drain faster than others. I will be seeing her soon for a new mold.

FL Mary

OK, I'll list what I can remember right now and that certainly won't be everything. Besides the battery life being less on the Phonaks there are other important differences between Phonak and Oticon. Remember I'm comparing Phonak Paradise and Oticon More.

Phonak advertised that they can pair with up to 7 devices and run 2 at the same time. I have not found that to be true. For instance when the app is open or even running in the background the remote controller doesn't work. And the audio won't connected to my computer when connected to the phone. The Oticon connectivity (with iPhone) is seamless but more limited in terms of devices.

The Phonak uses the hearing aid microphones for hands free phone calls. You don't have to talk into the phone. But people on the other end of the call hear any background noise around you. Not able to shut this off. Oticon uses both hearing mics and phone mic.

The Phonak outgoing calls connect directly to the hearing aids. But incoming calls answered on the phone go to phone audio and you have to manually switch to hearing aids. Calls can be answered with audio going directly to hearing aids by the "double tap" feature (double tap a hearing aid to answer). But the double tap is more like a double THUMP. It is hard to hit that tiny hearing aid with enough force to activate the feature. Oticon connectivity is seamless.

The worst thing for me is that the app, even while running has to connect to the hearing aids each time you want to use it which takes 10 to 20 seconds. The app disengages each time the phone goes to Lock Screen. The Oticon app is more user friendly with ore usable features.

The Phonaks do not have a "mute" feature to mute the hearing aid mics. I use this feature a lot when driving alone. I mute the mics and listen to streaming music without the road noise. There are times when I enjoy more silence and less stress.

On the plus side for Phonak I can hear a little better with them. The Oticons pick up sound from all directions (hence the name More). But I'm not able to tell where the sound is coming from. The Phonaks are better at that. And the Phonak allows me to hear for the first time the oven time on our kitchen stove. No other hearing aid has done that.

I"m sure I"ll think of more differences right after I hit the "send" button

@arrowshooter

I trialed Phonak Paradise with Bluetooth…didn’t even last 2 weeks.
My hearing is profound bilateral so the phone was of no use to me…still need captions. The Phonak app stinks and it does take a number of seconds for them to connect and then they disengage from the app. I only connected 2 devices but gave it a vigorous trial everywhere. I will say , once connected, I was able to pick up voices further away…but still couldn’t understand speech unless the speakers were facing me.

I found myself constantly using the phone. My son was given a pair of older Phonaks (battery) by a client. They are Bluetooth. His lose is moderate . He uses the Oticon On 2 .4.0 app on his iPhone with the Phonak aids and says it works flawlessly . That’s all he is interested in but says listening to audiobooks has improved. My Audi doesn’t understand how he can use that app with Phonaks.

If you look at the reviews in the play store you can see
all the complaints about the Phonak app.

I use Innocaption for phone calls and the audio is great but I can still use my ear link and plug it into the phone using Tcoil. I do this for my iPad and sometimes when I use GPS in unfamiliar areas. Hearing the voice is a prompt for me along with looking at directions. I have had the ear links for years and I think you can still get them. They are shaped like a candy canes and hook over your ears but you need Tcoil.

Went a little off subject here.

FL Mary