Hearing Loss Mild to Moderate - both ears

As a senior citizen I too have moderate hearing loss which for many is typically at the higher audio frequencies. My OTC (Over The Counter) BTE (Behind The Ear) rechargeable MD Hearing Aids (MDHearingAid.com) have worked good for me since I bought them a year ago. The company has excellent after sales technical support.
However, just like with my eye glasses, I only wear my hearing aids when I know I really need them. Of course it's better to practice using the hearing aids often to train your brain to the new hearing frequencies you can hear.

Here's a challenge for you. Take a short written paragraph and eliminate all the consonants from it. Then try to read it with only the vowels. The consonants are high frequency sounds that give speech meaning. Those are the sounds most people with hearing loss start missing first. Those higher pitched sounds are typical of women's and children's voices. Then do the opposite and eliminate the vowels only. Time yourself when reading it both ways or have someone else read it.

Food for thought: Often other people are more aware of our poor hearing than we are. How do your family members and friends relate to your high frequency hearing loss?

Julie has "been there and done that"! An important take-away from the typical need to restore some high frequency hearing loss is some actual laboratory frequency response data (link below) for several OTC (Over The Counter) hearing aids versus some high dollar prescription hearing aids. The data shows the OTC hearing aids lacking in their higher frequency amplification capability compared to the prescription hearing aids. Nevertheless the OTC aids may have sufficient high frequency performance for moderate hearing loss users who can't justify the higher cost and technology of name brand prescription hearing aids. In my opinion all hearing aid manufacturers should post the frequency response graphs of their products. OTC hearing aids that can be programmed with smart phone applications to emphasize particular frequency bands your hearing test shows needed amplification for may be worth some extra cost to accomplish more of what is done by professional audiologists when you purchase prescription hearing aids.

Thank you for sharing this information @bobweb. OTC hearing aids are here. I'm all in favor of less costly solutions to hearing loss. Hearing Tracker shares a lot of good information.

I would like very much to know more about how people are doing with the OTC products, so appreciate your comments.

How does one walk into a Best Buy Store and choose one of those OTC hearing aids hanging on the rack? How much do the salespeople at Best Buy know about hearing loss?