What to ask at my audiologist appointment?

Hi, here are some wonderful tools to help you prepare for your appointment. It is from the Ida Institute, a non-profit organisation that works to help make hearing care more personal. https://idainstitute.com/tools/telecare/prepare_for_your_first_appointment/ Best of luck and hope it goes well!

It's important to be realistic about what a hearing aid can do. It's an 'aid'. If you expect to have perfect hearing in noisy settings you will probably be disappointed. Yes, the technology is improving. We've come a long ways from the days of analog body aids as we've moved into the digital world of technology. Hearing aids have become smaller and easier to wear. No cords or boxes as in the olden days. BUT, they still, for the most part, serve as amplifying devices. They can be adjusted to your individual needs, per your audiogram, so frequency levels you naturally hear well at are not amplified to an uncomfortable level. They can have directional settings, so the focus is where you need it to be. They still will not screen out all the background noise. In quiet conversational settings they work wonders, but in noisy social settings they need help. This is where the assistive technology that goes with them can be extremely helpful. It's important to understand the options that make using assistive technologies possible. BlueTooth streaming is wonderful, and many of the newer aids have it. However, BT should not replace the telecoil component that makes it possible to directly connect to sound systems where hearing loops are available. If you're hearing loss is bothering you in settings with background noise, you want to understand this. You will also want a manual volume control in your hearing aids so YOU can control the volume. Automatic may sound good until you are experiencing sound that is either too soft or too loud and cannot do anything to change it. If your audiologist doesn't share information about these technologies, including a live demonstration of how they will help you, ask about it. If they diss either technology or tell you that you don't need it. Ask more questions. Why would you not want to hear in settings where these technologies bring sound direct to your ears while passing the background noise that bothers you? You should also know that adding a BlueTooth streamer to your hearing aids will also add cost. Adding an activated, functional telecoil to a hearing aid costs virtually nothing. While there may be no hearing loops in your area of the country, you can purchase a $50 personal loop to use with any audio devices that have an input jack. (Think computer, radio, iPod, cell phone, FM and IR receivers, etc.) And, YOU can get involved in advocating for hearing loops in the public venues and worship centers in your area. Those hearing loops some of us talk about so positively are there because people with hearing loss spoke up to educate and advocate for their installation. The American's with Disabilities Act mandates 'communication access', but it also allows it to be ignored if people don't insist that it's provided. Sorry for the rant folks, but this is all tied together. Hearing aids cost way too much, but when they do what you need them to do it's well worth the money spent. If you spend the money and then find out you are missing some of the technology you could use, you will be frustrated. Bottom line: Do not buy a hearing aid without a manual volume control or without a telecoil. Be sure the telecoil is activated. Insist on a live trial with it in the audiologist's office. Then, use the 30 day trial period you should be given, to try the hearing aid(s) in every possible situation. If they do not work well for you, take them back, but do it within the trial period or you will be stuck with them. It's OK to shop around, so be sure to ask for a copy of your audiogram when you are first tested so you can do that without more testing. Last, but not least, it really pays to talk to other people who are happy with their hearing aids and their providers. HLAA chapter's bring people together to learn. If there is one in your area, seek them out. If not, consider bringing a group together to start one. http://www.hearingloss.org is your resource.

High frequency hearing loss causes not to hear some letters in high pitch like s f r and if the word contains tmore than one high pitch letter then you are lost the conversation sometimes you can predict the word from the sentence
The only hearing aids help is the one compress the high pitch to lower to hear it but still doesn’t sound as normal
For that type you have to do through training or speech therapy to learn how they sound so you can recognize the letter S F R in the spoken word like “Right” and “Side” and so on but where you can get the therapy is in question
For me I also have some low pitch hearing loss and audiologist can help with correcting on of them not both with hearing aid.

High frequency hearing loss causes loss of clarity especially in the soft sounding letters. Same thing you said above but stated differently. Sometimes audiologists can program hearing aids to convert a frequency that you can't hear to a frequency that you can hear to improve speech understanding. I"m told that works for about half of patients. I wasn't one of them. I'm not aware of any aural rehab that can teach speech understanding. I have struggled with the same problem you have since about 1970. I can't understand words in songs, can't understand whispering, can't understand loud speakers in depots or drive-up windows, and of course any speech in noisy places. But I can hear noise real well even without my hearing aids. I'd love to give you an answer to your hearing problem, but I have not found one 50 years. But keep trying - all patients are different and respond differently to different treatments. Keep working with your audiologist. Give the audi all the help you can. They can only adjust for what you tell them. Keep notes between appointments. Read up on hearing loss (like you've been doing. Doctors like a well informed patient. It makes their job easier.