Hearing Aids

Hi I think they can go pretty high I have had mine since October I was missing high pitched noises( I didn't know I couldn't hear people saying s and t in words) and my tinnitus is around 11000hz, the hearing aids I have white noise in the background to mask as well which works some of the time.

 

Wow..that's cool. Currently, the whole HA market is one big scam with audiologists cleaning us of lots of $$$$$ (once again..the medical industry preying on the desperate). It only takes about $500 to $1000 to make a high-end HA (including R&D) but the other $3000 goes to markup (mostly the audiologists). Big scam and they look like shit. But this could be a game changer. I might actually get a HA if these come out!

Edit
But then I read this:
http://www.cnet.com/news/worlds-first-invisible-hearing-aid-runs-into-controversy-over-its-claims/

Anyway...small or not...cheap or not...it might just make my T worse since noise (at high freq) will make it worse. Better to stay away.

 

I've had hearing aids for a couple of years. The most basic kind without wi-fi connection or any of that other crap that drives up the price. They're programmed to not process sound above a certain volume or pitch so I don't have to worry about them amplifying the sound of a fire truck siren or something like that. From my experience, just having my auditory senses occupied with mild-moderate background noise is enough to keep my T at a comfortably dull baseline.

 

I'm a newbie to this board. I'm 61 years old and have previously been diagnosed with moderate hearing loss in the upper frequencies. A few months ago, tinnitus appeared, mostly in might right ear. Up until a few weeks ago, the sound was just annoying, and I found that I could usually just ignore it. But then it got louder with more high-frequency "static" (like a weird wind chime with nothing but high-frequency notes) and interrupted my sleep. My GP had been after me to try hearing aids, so I had him make me an appointment with an ENT, who referred me to an audiologist. The audiologist offered to let my try a pair of hearing aids (with no tinnitus masking feature) and when she put them in, my tinnitus completely disappeared. I bought a pair and so far the tinnitus simply isn't there when the hearing aids are in place. I feel very lucky that the solution for me has proved to be so simple. I hope it lasts.

 

Hi Steve

Thanks for your story. Sounds like you have a great GP. I'm a newbie too. I’m off to an audiologist today for hearing test. I’ve been waiting a month for an appointment. After reading your story and others on this forum who have had positive results with hearing aids I’m hoping I might be lucky as well. I suspect I have a 30db loss at least in left ear or maybe more as best I can tell by doing online tests with headphones. I really notice it because it happened overnight not gradually.

Did you have hearing loss for a long while before T arrived?

 

When I switched GP's three years ago, the new GP discovered hearing loss then, and he was the first to perform a hearing test on me in many years. For years I played in orchestras and bands--cymbals clashing near my unprotected ears, among other things--so I wasn't that surprised by a diagnosis of hearing loss.

 

Hearing aids probably lead to overstrain of the ear. Has this thread discussed this article?

http://www.lumomed.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=57&Itemid=65&lang=en

it might be correct or it might be pimping laser, but even if the latter it might be right about hearing aids getting over-prescribed

Wilden and his son seem pretty adamant about hearing aids being shit.

 

Hearing aids cannot hurt your hearing. They are programmed by audiologists to normalize your hearing, not to give you "super hearing" or anything that might approximate an over amplification of sounds.

I do agree that many hearing aids are ridiculously expensive. But reasonable ones also exist. Sam's Club and Costco, for example, offer affordable hearing aids. Hearing aid dispensers--rather than audiologists--also might offer less expensive models.

Here is an article about hearing aid expense from 2012:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-hunt-for-an-affordable-hearing-aid/​

Audicious is one of the better known companies that offer affordable hearing aids. I believe you need to give them a recent audiogram so they can program it.

https://audicus.com/​

There is scientific evidence that hearing aids do help people with tinnitus. They do this by 1) stimulating your auditory cortex by providing sounds you are missing through hearing loss and 2) improving your ability to hear a variety of sounds, which may serve to distract you from your tinnitus.

Hearing aids won't cure your tinnitus, of course. And, I believe, the best hearing aids include some type of white noise component, which further helps to distract you from your tinnitus. That said, whether or not you want to wear a hearing aid is a personal choice, but it should not be choice made from fear that the device may cause hearing damage or may worsen your noise.

 

hi Steve ( @Steve721 )

Can you tell us the make and model of your hearing aids please?

Also - do you sleep with the aids in your ears or do you take them out at night?

When you take them out does your tinnitus immediately reappear?

Thanks for your help with this.

Click

 

Currently I have loaner hearing aids, the Unitron Moxi-2 behind-the-ear model (without tinnitus masking). I've ordered another more up-to-date model of the Unitron behind-the-ear hearings aids, which have a tinnitus masking feature and which should be in shortly. I put the hearing aids in when I go to work (at about 8:30 a.m.) and then take them out when I get home (at about 6:00 p.m.) to give my ears a chance to "breath". I put them back in when I go to bed (at about 11:00 p.m.) and sleep with them (usually until about 7:00 a.m.). My audiologist said it would be fine for me to sleep with the hearing aids, which is one of the main reasons I decided to get them. I've adjusted pretty well to sleeping with the hearing aids, although I've taken 5mg Ambien a couple of nights to help me get used to them. After I take out the hearing aids, it takes about half an hour before my tinnitus reappears full strength. Hope this helps.

 

@Steve721

Thanks Steve - for such a comprehensive reply. Yes, it really helps.

Apologies for asking another question... if your T has gone using aids without masking... why do you want to try ones with the masking feature?

Thank you again.

Click

 

When I first got T I went and upgraded my hearing aids to the ones with sound generators. After 6 months or so I stopped using them and actually I can't even turn the sound generators on anymore. I went back to my audiologist some months back and had them replace that functionality with some other program to help me hear better in large rooms of people. I just simply didn't need the sound generators after time passed.

 

The masking feature just comes with the new hearing aids, even though I don't need it. More and more manufacturers are evidently adding that. Thanks.

 

I wish hearing aids could help me, alas I have no hearing loss...Or I have hidden hearing loss. My nan has tinnitus and has hearing aids which helps mask it. Lucky eh?

 

You probably have hidden hearing loss--or, more specifically, some type of cochlear damage that does not show up on an audiogram. But it's commonly believed that some type of hearing damage must occur for tinnitus to develop. Not all damage, however, is measurable by today's technology.

 

Well, guess I'll never know. Damn these ear conditions.

 

I say to anyone who gets hearing aids and has tinnitus get them with a volume control. At night I keep them on (naughty boy ! ) turn them to max which in normal life would distort sound ,but in the quiet of the bedroom it blocks out a lot of my T..without them I dont know how I would cope.Dont know how it works but it does

 

Hi carlover - good to see (hear?) you!

Don't they all have volume controls then? I'd assumed they would have. Looks like I may have to find out more because I know so little about them.

best wishes, Click

 

Hi carlover,

Before you were fitted with hearing aids were you able to mask your T easily.
And at which high freq is your hearing loss.
I also have HF loss and very bad T i am going for a free trial H aids, but i am not very optimistic.

 

Br hello ,no I had no chance of masking,Just taken the aids out to run round my Park ,all the noise of nature and kids and football and still that continuous noise in my head. Be optimistic buddy...I went privately to see an ear man (not ent ) head of the cochlear dept of st georges I had a test there he said i have High freq loss and " I doubt if you will believe me but once you get hearing aids in the t will be far less " he was right twice one I didnt believe him and two it does turn it down , I got them on the NHS the second ones have a volume control a godsend in the quiet of bed ,because pink noise going on my CD Player all night still didnt mask just irritated me.

 

S and T or S, F, and Z? These tend to be the higher frequencies and 11000 hz is way out of the speech range.
Close your eyes and tell me what I'm saying - Wellsley Wellsfleet . Those two words from my mouth
might fall between 1000 hz and 2000 hz. Hearing range changed over the last 50 years. It now goes from 500 to 2000 now 4000 and some dopes still say it's 6000 hz but I think that's to make you buy hearing aids.

Glad your aid(s) have white noise to mask your T. Widex has a "zen" setting. I thought it would be white noise but it's actually a form of music pumped in.

The rest of you folks - watch out for hearing aid dealers. I've been helping (this is not a paying gig) friends
and a co-worker NOT get ripped by hearing aid dealers since I was first drafted to help a neighbor when I
was a teenage. I got tired of having dealers pull (w/me - TRY) stunts to sell aid for way too long. I'm still doing it
with a retired friend and we made progress. The first audiologist was a jerk and her selling technique was horrible. I'm much more familiar with analog aids but I'm doing pretty well with the complexities of digitals. Yes, they are ghastly expensive and audiologists will do everything they can to push an aid on ya.

 

Thank you for your response carlover.

I will try aids also, hope they help a bit as i too have some high freq loss. My T is also loud and cannot be masked. Its driving me mad. If something is going to work or not with T is like a lottery. I am happy that they did the trick for you.

 

High frequency hearing is also very significant. If you play around with an equalizer you find that changing sliders in the 6khz+ range completely changes the output sounds, whether it is for vocals or instruments.

 

I know what the higher hertz can do and have had an equalizer in older days but the fact that speaking range is now hitting 6000 hz (I believe) is a product of commercialism not reality. I couldn't play the violin (too high) and played viola and taught myself cello and I didn't say I play either well. In other words, I know orchestral music and grew up surrounded by it, choruses, Broadway shows (when they had real orchestras), gosh jazz bands - at home at at clubs, and the list goes beyond my memory. Years ago, I tried a couple digital aids and they just didn't work with my head. But the sound of classical music played in a clean environment brought tears to my eyes. Higher hertz recognition with digital aids (I had to stick w/analog) helped with that.

I just did my own test with our own Abbott and Costello routine here. I could not differentiate between these two words pre-cochlear implant and didn't even think about it until your response. I had my partner turn around and say (in a normal and then softer and softer than normal voice) Wellsley and Wellsfleet. I repeated what she said as she swapped words around and kept getting softer. I had no problem differentiating between them. My partner was stunned. I wasn't surprised.

So, higher frequencies are fine but I do not trust that speaking range is at 6000 hz. As a matter of fact, we have some squeaky and young kids here. This year, I finally understood my best little friend.

 

That's not evidence of helping with tinnitus. Someone goes to a bar and because there's a ton of people he doesn't hear his own tinnitus. But you can't patent that, so no billions to be sold like in the hearing aid industry. That doesn't mean going to a bar helps with tinnitus, but that it helps people cope with tinnitus, two completely different things. And for that same reason, the first of the two reasons you gave, cannot be proven.

 

Hey @carlover, long time no see! Welcome!

@Danny Boy: FYI, even if you get an audiogram, most test to around 8,000 hz, the range of speech. Often people with tinnitus have loss in the higher ranges. So you don't notice your hearing deficit. My loss is at about 12000-13000 hz, detected through a more wide-ranging test at a university research clinic.

 

Don't think I'd be lucky to get a test like that. Doesn't matter anyway, I'm stuck with tinnitus, well mild tinnitus now. I can live, I can breath...That's all that matters.

 

After being told just live with it, I am fortunate to have a close friend in another state who specializes in T. I went for a full evaluation last week and she confirmed the 4-8 kHz mild to moderate SNHL (and moderate to severe 8-12kHz, with nothing above that). She matched the pitch at 8 kHz and fitted me with Oticon hearing aids with tinnitus maskers-- quite an involved process. It appears so far that I habituate to the different masking noises quite quickly and then hear the T above that but it seems to be making things more tolerable for work. I did notice that 1) I hear new bird sounds and 2) when I take the HA out at night, the T appears much louder than it does with the HA in, which suggests to me that the HA is making the T more tolerable (though I am still rotating the programs when the T gets enough louder than the noise). I assume this will take time for me to get used to and hopefully, pay less attention to both the HA and the T.

 

New type of hearing aid uses light to offer wider frequency response

http://www.earlenscorp.com/

 

Please do not regret not having hearing loss.
I know tinnitus is no fun, but neither is hearing loss when it starts getting serious.

Enjoy your hearing while it lasts (and I hope it lasts as long as you do).