Non-Prescription Over the Counter Hearing Aids

I have tried a Hue Hearing, hearing aid online and found it to be not very good. I am looking at what my options might be without spending thousands of dollars. At the moment I am using Apple Air Pods hooked up to my cell phone. They really work quite well and cost me $179 on Amazon. They recharge easily and although they can be seen by others, I don't feel that I look much different from all the public walking around with air pods in their ears for music.
I do want to find something else that is more invisible but these ear pods work well for the time being.
Would love to hear from others who have found a good hearing aid solution.

@navia

My first question is why do you want them to be invisible? Are you afraid of what people will think ?
The hearing aid industry always mentions aids that are so small no one will know you are wearing them. That’s a great disservice to the millions of us who have hearing loss. I think they are less noticeable than eyeglasses if that is a concern. People wear cochlear implants. I wear powerful behind the ear aids because they are what I need and what works for me. I would rather people notice them and believe me, 9 times out of ten, they don’t.

Don’t focus on that aspect and tell us more about what you are experiencing, have you had your hearing tested, how long and what type of problems do you seem to be having. Don’t waste your money on online amplifiers or OTC hearing aids if you are self diagnosing .

Please get a hearing test and talk to a qualified Audiologist.

FL Mary

Yes I have had 2 hearing tests and have spoken with 2 audiologists. They said I had lost 40% of my hearing in one ear but since then I think I am worse and need to have another. I also went to Costco and tried some and thought that the $1,500 model worked as well as the one at my clinic for $6,000. I would stick with the air pods but they do sometimes fall out.
I believe my hearing is affected by my LPR throat acid reflux. The sound that I hear is echoing through my head, a bit like if you go deaf on the plane when you are landing. If it's not from the LPR I wonder if it is from having Covid.

@navia

Glad to hear you have had testing but can’t help you with the cause. Costco has a good trial period and if you think they work just as well as the more expensive aid, then by all means try them. Was that $6000 for one aid ? That’s more appropriate for a pair of high quality aids and is excessive for one aid. What type of Costco aid is it….behind the ear or in the ear and do you need a custom mold?

You are right to shop around but don’t wait too long. Unaided hearing loss generally doesn’t get better...just worse. I still don’t know why you have the concern for invisibility, if you don’t mind sharing. Your concern should be for the best hearing available.

FL Mary

Thank you to everyone who is sharing their thoughts on this, and also to those who are sharing their 'reactions' You've shared concerns about stigma, cost, the Costco option, trial periods, etc. Good! Hearing loss is real for nearly 48 million Americans. Unfortunately, the stigmas attached to it continue to be an issue for far too many people who need the support that technology can provide. It's amasing that the very industry that is supposed to be trying to make our lives better, also promotes the age-old stigmas associated with hearing loss. Shouldn't those companies push the concept of making life better instead of promoting invisibility?

Our hearing loss, whether it is treated or not is very 'visible' and obvious to people we know. Some don't realize our struggles relate to hearing loss because we won't talk about it. Instead, they wonder about our intellect and may even wonder if we are experiencing cognitive decline when we respond out of context or appear to be in outer space during conversation.

When we get help for poor hearing through technology we tend to do better, and if it's visible it should give the message that we are helping ourselves. There's still some confusion because people often think a hearing aid will make things 'all better'. They don't. they are not a 'cure' for hearing loss. They are aids/helpers that make it easier for us to understand conversations. They amplify and some help a great deal with clarity. Thanks to a lot of research and development those aids have improved significantly from the days when they were just basic amplifiers. Today's hearing aids, when fit properly, can make a huge difference in a person's quality of life. It's up to us to figure out what works best and what makes us comfortable.

Professionally fit hearing aids based on a prescriptive audiogram done by a professional are without a doubt the Gold Standard in hearing aids. Sadly, many people cannot afford them. For many it's a choice. There's no one answer.

Hearing aids fit and sold by Costco are not 'over the counter/nonprescriptive devices. They are, for the most part, standard hearing aids that are fit by hearing instrument specialists who are trained and employed by the retailer. The skill of the fitter will have a great deal to do with the success a person has in using them. On a positive note, they are returnable after being purchased. Having an extensive trial period can be ge help. I'm told that Costco has a 180 day trial period. That's plenty of time to try the product(s) in many situations where you want to hear.

While on that return policy issue, if you choose to try over the counter hearing aids sold by places like Walgreens, Best Buy, etc. be sure to read everything in the fine print on the box. Make sure there is a return policy. Ask questions. Do they have telecoils or BlueTooth. Are they rechargeable or do they need batteries? Don't buy something you cannot return.

We can learn a lot from each other's experiences buying OTC hearing aids. It's a personal decision, and a very important one.

This is a very timely discussion. Please let us know: Where? How much? What? And, of course, how much do they help you?

It was $6,000 for 2 but to me it seems excessive. I have a friend who paid more than that for a pair and they don't seem to work very well for him.
I shall probably try Costco again but the last time I went there for a hearing test, they wouldn't do it because I had too much wax build up. Then when I had them syringed I was going away and couldn't get in there. Now I probably need them syringed again.
I would prefer invisible hearing aids first of all because I like to wear earrings and it looks kind of stupid with a hearing aid next to the earring. Also in England where I came from the free NHS aids were quite large and were outside the ear. My Granny wore some and they were ugly and aging. I don't think there are many aids now that aren't mostly invisible so that is not a problem. I just want the best hearing for the least price.
My Mother had the sort that were totally in the ear and she had moulds made. With most of the hearing aids, I have had trouble fitting the little wire part in my ear. I am always told how small my ear channels are and I think that the inner type might be better for me.

Hi, @navia
You mention a friend with expensive hearing aids that do not seem to work well for him. You do need to be aware that depending on how severe the hearing loss is it can be much more difficult to treat. My loss is profound in one ear and severe in the other. Typically, I can hear what is being said but cannot understand it. That is very common in older people especially. My husband will speak louder and that does sometimes help but not always. When it's understanding what was said it's a completely different situation.

My hearing aids were the most innovative in speech recognition when I got them a couple of years ago, so it's not the HAs, it's me.

I do have "behind the ears" HAs, the smaller ones are not powerful enough to compensate for my hearing loss. They really are not noticeable though unless you have extremely short hair, and as others have said it's actually good for people to be aware that you have a hearing loss. Since the days when your Granny had hearing aids things have changed a lot and the behind the ears ones are much smaller. My daughter is 40 and she has been wearing hearing aids since she was 4. Her original hearing aids were much larger than what she has now. Interestingly, her hearing loss is not related to mine! I recognized that she had a hearing loss when she was 3. My hearing loss started when I was in my late 50s, and our losses are opposite to each other. I have more trouble with higher pitches, she has more trouble with lower ones.

Speaking of pitches, if a person has more trouble with higher pitches they generally have more problems with speech recognition because many letters have high pitches when in words.
JK

I had a hearing loss mostly in the lower registers, that was not diagnosed for most of my life. Luckily my career was teaching in a women's college. When they went co-ed I was struck by how much the young men mumbled. A few years after that I had a hearing test, Which discovered that I couldn't hear the young men very well!
Then I had chemotherapy with Platinum drugs, which did a job on the ears across the board. My loss is supposed to be still moderate but I have a lot of trouble with speech, Even with expensive hearing aids that have been messed with extensively. I now tell everybody after the first sentence that I am quite deaf even with hearing aids and can they please speak more slowly. I find that with the loss of much redundancy, it takes me longer to process what I hear. (I knew the slowly trick from trying to understand foreign languages.)
My daughter in law was diagnosed only as an adult, when my son realized that she heard music very differently from what he heard, and thought of hearing loss. This explained why I always thought she was a little spacey; her answers not really on track. I think my grandmother was also deaf like me; my grandfather always laughed because she gave such weird answers to his questions. She was fine with women. I realized this when I found myself making up answers on the basis of what I thought I was hearing, knowing I was totally guessing.
So yes, I am in the camp of making sure everybody knows I'm quite deaf. And trying to train them how to speak to someone who is somewhat deaf.
Much preferable to having them think I'm stupid or senile.

For those of you who have shopped at Costco, what is your choice? Presently they offer Rexton, Jabra and Phillips. Is anyone willing to offer your experience with any of these?

Behind The Ear (BTE) aids aren't too small or too big. Hearing tests are free many places without buying over priced high end hearing aids for simple mild hearing loss that many seniors have. But really a good hearing "test" for most mild loss cases is just buying a good pair of Over The Counter (OTC) aids ($500) and you'll soon know what you can hear and what you can't hear in different sound environments. A proviso is that if your new to hearing aids, be prepared to learn how to use and maintain them over many months of use to make them work for you. Rely on recommendations and reviews before you purchase and my recommendation is to choose the BTE style hearing aids from my electrical engineering background analysis. Note that background noise is often what makes it hard to hear other people whether with or without hearing aids.