No one likes to repeat themselves, apparently

@ltecato

Just curious as to why you initially posted on this very supportive forum. Not being combative…just wondering. If it’s just for venting, that’s fine as we all need to do that occasionally and others have done so here.

FL Mary

Every time someone mentions the ADA, I have a flashback to what happened right after it was introduced. At the time I lived in a fair-sized city (Portland, OR), and the city fathers decided that they needed to provide slanted ramps at all major street crossings to make it easier for those in wheelchairs. Great...except that at the time I was really fighting hard to stay upright with Meniere's, and the ramps only made it far more difficult. I quickly learned to not cross at the corners but to step down off the sidewalk before the corners. That was difficult, but not nearly as much as dealing with the slanted cement. I worked hard on vestibular rehab and can handle almost any challenge as a result, but those first four years, before someone explained VRT, were a challenge every day. Still, I thought it was pretty funny that an accommodation for one type of disability would make life a bit more challenging for someone with a different disability.

I agree that, even at a hearing or CI center, the nurse comes out, mumbles a name and expects the correct patient in the room full of HOH people to respond. I understand the problem at other doc's offices, but it amazes me that places that specialize in treating people with hearing problems don't have a better way to announce the name of the next patient! Docs at hearing centers are just as prone to talk with their backs turned, too. I can usually puzzle out what people are saying IF they're facing me, but whatever they say with their backs turned always is largely a mystery. Asking politely for them to repeat what you missed often really annoys them, too...in spite of the fact that you made the appt. in an attempt to hear better. <g>

My strategy to offset any irritation on the part of the speaker is to immediately apologize: "Sorry about my ears" and add, "I get so many things wrong! And I really want to be sure I understand everything you've said." I've never encountered anyone who didn't immediately grasp the situation and revise their response.

I try to do likewise but I find that the people close to you are the most often fed up and bad tempered and the shout loudly because they are angry (which with tinnitus is worse) So I try to encourage the person to stand cloer, face me and speak slowly and clearly. I tell them having tinnitus and deafness is not my fault and hopefully that makes them think...

I can’t say I have run across many people who are annoyed when I ask them to repeat themselves. At least they haven’t shown they are annoyed. I do get frustrated though when they do repeat themselves and I still can’t understand. I need to try the part about trying to get them to rephrase but most of the time it is so automatic that I say what or I’m sorry I didn’t catch that. It’s a bit hard to say can you rephrase that.

@mickey5909
Hi
Repeat what you heard (or misheard) and have them fill in the gaps. That often lead s to laughter.
And yeah, rephrasing throws people off. I generally only do that with family and it’s usually just one or two unfamiliar words.

We always say “sorry” because it IS automatic. Did you ever notice that when you tell people about your hearing loss, they also say “I’m sorry”? Each encounter calls for a different strategy and we are thinking fast. Some encounters are so brief in our daily life it’s just best to smile (kinda of) and move on.

No wonder we are tired at the end of the day. Hearing people have no idea how much we have to plan our day and navigate through these silent waters.

Could be worse.

FL Mary

If loud voices are bothersome, you may have recruitment as well as tinnitus. Recruitment, or hyperacusis, is when a sharp loud sound is amplified so that it's far louder than reality. Loud noises/speech shouldn't make tinnitus worse; in fact, tinnitus is generally nature's way of giving you something to listen to--when you are listening, you are often totally unaware of tinnitus. It's usually most bothersome in very quiet settings, like when you're trying to fall asleep. A thorough hearing test will tell if you have recruitment.

That is very interesting..because at one time until recently I was able to hear bats and sometimes feel when silent security systems were on..(my ears would hurt) Now with my rt.ear not working I have a problem with echo location....and find it quite confusing.

from the hill:

I'm excited because I have a hearing test scheduled for next month. After four years of total hell during my mid-40s (right after I quit taking birth control pills, due to my age), I had lots of recruitment in my nearly useless right ear and was told that it isn't aidable. Later, as I grew older, I had age-related hearing loss in my "good" ear and got an aid. May 24, 2019, Meniere's went bilateral, and I was functionally deaf for a year (plus having crises that forced me to lie without moving, vomiting). I knew that the disease would be far less bothersome if I could find a doc willing to prescribe large doses of replacement hormones (I was in my late 70s). Once I finally found a doc willing to humor me, my hearing in my "good" ear returned to more or less the level it had been before going bilateral and the crises quit. During that year, I had lots of recruitment in that ear and often couldn't tolerate wearing the aid that boosted my faulty hearing. The recruitment was gone once I began taking hormones, so the nearing test next month is to see if now my "unaidable" right ear can be aided, which would give me some sense of where sound comes from and, perhaps, improve my ability to figure out what people are saying.

Funny moment from the past: I had a friend who also had lost all hearing in one ear. We'd gone to lunch together, where we'd translated what the waiter was saying for each other (!) and were walking back toward her office when we both heard a fire truck siren. We caught each other, swiveling our heads round to try to figure out where the truck was, which direction it was headed toward! We laughed until we were nearly crying, it was so funny.

Here, during summers, we have a biplane that takes tourists up for 45-minute flights. Now that I have some hearing again, I can often HEAR the plane, but I often cannot see it because I have no idea of which part of the sky to look at. This little strip of land occupied by people next to the ocean has miles and miles of forest to the east, so planes are very uncommon. It's the same thing when the Coast Guard helicopter flies past on a rescue mission: often I have no idea of where to look for it.

@fromthehill

We have neurons on both sides of the brain that fire when sounds are made. When you have hearing loss, there is damage to the neural map as they call it. The more profound the loss, the more damage there is to this map.
So that results in not being able to locate where sounds are coming from.
I too can sense sounds that I can't hear.
Research is looking into the premise that our sense of touch...how sensitive our skin is...may be responding to vibrations when a loud noise is produced. They are looking into seeing which parts of the brain respond to sound and touch and think the brain may be combining both senses. Not sure if this explanation is entirely accurate on my part but that's what I came away with and it makes sense to me when you think about bone conduction headphones and bone conduction hearing implants where vibrations play a part.

FL Mary