Love to know the model of Oticon. By knowing the Model of HAs you wear, I might be able to offer some hope. One thing you will need to do with your AudD is have frank discussions of what you are hearing and what you would like to change eg. ‘Feels like I’m in an oil drum’ or ‘Loud sounds make my heart race’ or ‘When my mom is on my right side I can’t hear her as well as on the left” or ‘Sounds like I have a cold, like my ears are stuffed with cotton’. This kind of language will help your AudD to understand. Plan to have a long term relationship with your AudD, become friends, talk a LOT, the more this helper knows you the better they will understand your unique hearing loss language. Don’t give up. Let me say that again, Don’t Give UP! Hearing Loss - the invisible disability - is one of the most difficult to get remediated. I often went to my AudD Candace three or four times a year for adjustments, sometimes more often. She let me know when it was time to move up to the next HA based on my increasing loss. Finally, I was at the strongest aids, adjusted to the strongest support possible and I just could not understand - my word discrimination had diminished to the point that I could understand 4-6 words out of a hundred with both aids on in testing, much less in public. I knew I had been relying on sight reading, my training as a psychotherapist to body read and context to be able to be part (though fractured) of any conversation. A kind AudD when I was traveling and came in for a ‘desperation’ adjustment clued me in… there was nothing else HAs could do for me. Wow! Changed my life. I now have a cochlear implant and use one of my high powered aids in the other ear for balance. Oh my, am I ever part of the conversation now!!! I went to a Pink Martini concert a couple days ago (first since my processor was activated 2 years ago). I could hear distinct instruments, the words of songs and the very fast talker Thomas Lauderdale on his MC mic. Fabulous!
Good luck. Again, do not give up. You are worthy the effort. Train your people and strangers to look at you when speaking, to enunciate clearly and to employ a little kindness as you are an amazing person who just happens to have trouble understanding conversation!