Hearing Aids

2020 New Year Update: I’ve continued to feel better and have much lower tinnitus with my new aides. For me, they were the missing link to a better quality of life. Is it perfect? Of course not; but where I was a 8-10, now it’s a 3-5. I feel because of this, my ability to habituate took a giant leap forward. I’m no longer incredibly miserable and angry all the time. My general outlook has greatly improved and I’m not deeply depressed any longer. Seeing a light at the end of the tunnel is way better than the darkness.

 

I think I may revisit hearing aids option.

 

@bobvann, just a bit of info that might help. I wore bilateral hearing aids for 5 years that of course helped my hearing, but did absolutely nothing for the tinnitus. They had a tinnitus masker, which actually aggravated it.

The newer Bi-Cross hearing aids are what made the difference for me. All the best!

 

Thanks! I'm glad something is working for you. What is Bi-Cross vs Bilateral? (I understand bilateral).

My question is more in the difference. I can perhaps bring this up. I have a few options. There is a clinician nearby that does TRT or I have 25 percent off with a certain clinic that would just be purchasing hearing aids themselves. I don't have significant hearing loss. I was thinking of trying them just to Bluetooth sounds off apps and built in sounds.

As mentioned in other threads, I have had 2 fittings make my head scream in the past. I know one can trial them which is why I am considering it. Since I am not simply going to CBT or distort think my way out of it.

I fully get being frustrated and angry. My wife suffers from chronic facial nerve pain. (Getting older is not for the weak ) We support each other.

I went to see a clinician a few months back. Due to her honesty of refusing to sell them to me in the past. Again she stated they were not a necessity, to come back when I have significant hearing loss.

She stated that a lot of her clients actually turn off the masking and just use them to hear.

 

@bobvann, I’m no expert and tried to explain how it generally works in my previous posts in this thread. By the way, both of my sets were and are bi-lateral, which just means an aide in each ear.

The Phonack Bi-Cross works a bit differently from other aides. They are more specifically for when you have more hearing loss in one ear, as in my case. I had SSHL & although I had 3 days of steroid injections & my hearing was recovered by 60%, it was distorted and had static that I found quite disabling. My ENT recommended this type of aide to me. The hearing bi-crosses over from the “bad ear” which usually has the perception of Tinnitus along with more hearing loss to the better ear. It seems to take the brunt off the bad ear and moves it over to the better ear. In my case, this has let my worse ear in a way, heal and by doing that, I have been able to habituate. I’m sure there’s a better explanation at their website. I have a generous hearing aids benefit through my insurance. The audiologist gave me a 60 trial period. Hope this helps. All the best.

 

I know you had insurance. I do too but only $300.00 for hearing aids. Someone said if they are submitted as a medical device I may covered for more. I would trial 1st anyhow.

 

@bobvann, I will say these are not inexpensive. Even with my $2500 coverage & $400 discount from Hearing Solutions of America, the model I wanted still cost me over $2,000. But I’m paying it off interest free over 12 months through Credit Care. It’s a medical credit card. That helped allot.

 

You know what. I agree they would cost me close to 4 grand. If they can do what they are doing for you, I have ways to make it work. It's just when I did try them I had a bad reaction on 2 occasions. Which kind of makes sense when you think about pumping noise right up close into a sensitive ear canal. I can't even drum with double ear protection to give you an idea.

I know some say that hearing aids vs ear buds are different due to the physics and so on. If you look at them closely they are tiny little ear buds at the end the fiber cables.

I am curious in regards to Lenire. It's just a bit rich for my budget right now...

 

That's because the most important frequencies and the conversational range are all below 4kHz. The frequency of 8 kHz, in terms of just functioning in daily life, is quite irrelevant. It could be important for a sound engineer, a musician, or in situations with a lot of background noise, but for just getting by and communicating it is not relevant.

 

I am curious about SSHL. Does it happen out of the blue, like you get up and you suddenly realise that you don't hear well? Or is it something that develops over time, in a matter of days or weeks?

 

Well as a musician it didn’t seem to affect me either.

I guess we just get used to dealing with what we have to work with. I’m amazed that my audiogram was like that... The ENT said he thought the hearing loss was normal older age and not caused by the MRI because it was the same in both ears... of course the MRI was surrounding me so I don’t agree with him. I have protected my ears for 20 years where the average person would not... movies, theme parks, etc.

That’s why I get annoyed when I see someone so sad that they had to give up marijuana... give me a break... lol.

Does anyone know which trials I would be excluded from?

Thanks.

 

My personal experience, and my feeling about sound with hyperacusis, tinnitus, and a bit of hearing loss, is that at the beginning, despite some hearing loss in high frequencies, your ears will sort of pick up sound and amplify it more than normal, due to the hyperacusis and maybe because the outer hair cells of the inner ear are malfunctioning, but suddenly there is a day when you start noticing dramatic changes in your hearing due to a single noise episode (be it the MRI or some other sudden very loud sound), and this big change happens because those damaged hair cells just die or somehow get disconnected from the other neurons and parts of the hearing system involved in driving sound to the brain. That's my personal feeling...

So even if hair cells don't work well, it is still good if they are able to carry sound somehow. For instance, with hearing problems you can hear a sound but not at the right pitch. Let's say you hear 8 kHz at 55 dB but the pitch you really hear sounds like 5 kHz, not like 8 kHz.... but when hair cells just died, you won't hear anything, at any pitch.

Is it possible for a musician to play well without hearing well? I was watching an orchestra play on TV, classical music, and there were musicians playing violin with hearing aids in both ears… I was like... woww!!! Must be real hard to perform with damaged hearing!

 

The S in SSNHL stands for "Sudden".

 

Yes, but I read that "sudden" sensorineural hearing loss can happen suddenly, usually after waking up in the morning or from siesta, or it can evolve during a short time, a week or so, resulting in both cases on the loss of 30 dB on 3 consecutive frequencies. So I was asking because I dont know anyone with personal experience on this.

Sometimes after being exposed to noise there is pressure (likely inflammation) and pain. I find this less worrying than the times when there is not such great pain but suddenly days after, without linking this to any particular event, one perceives a change in hearing, like sounds perceived very flat or not perceived at all.. actually it is very hard to measure hearing just on a standard audiometric test, that depends on the patient pressing a button on the general instructions of "if you hear some sound, even if very subtle press". This test is meaningless, since it does not measure 1) the ability to extract meaning from the sound (language comprehension), 2) the ability to hear the right pitch for a certain sound, and also 3) a subject may press a bit before the sound goes up or a bit later, and it totally distort the results of an audiometric test.. pressing too early may make the test look better than it really is...

 

As noted the first S stands for sudden. Various online definitions refer to loss over "several days" and "up to three days."

 

I do. I was first (mis) diagnosed as SSNHL. It was really sudden, as in "I woke up in the morning and my hearing was noticeably impaired. When I went to bed, it was fine."

If you don't know the cause, then it's diagnosed as "Idiopathic SSNHL". It gets a little trickier because the diagnosis tools to find a root cause aren't great. I struggled a lot to get to a proper diagnosis.

If you drop 30 dBs in a few months, it's still a much greater loss rate than natural loss, so it does warrant a consultation, although I don't know that it'll be qualified as "sudden" hearing loss, but that matters less than the treatment and follow up.

Hardly anyone has test results showing a decline "in the past few months". It's not like we all do hearing tests weekly and keep archives just in case. So what happens is that there is a point where you feel something is wrong, and you consult. At that point you do not have the tinnitus minus 3 months worth of data to check whether it was "sudden" or "not so sudden", unfortunately.

Perhaps hearing tests should be part of yearly physicals, to have at least some data points, just like what we do with blood work.

 

I have an appointment to go and trial some hearing aids on the 29th. The would cost me approx $2700.00. I have a 90 trial... Plenty of time to see if will help...

 

I’m getting a high frequency audiogram conducted by a local university to detect losses in the upper registers. I guarantee I have hearing loss in the left. Hopefully sending a more precise audiogram to Luna for their up to 13 kHz device would be the edge I need in destroying my high frequency hiss.

 

Write a success story!

 

Let me know how that goes. I'm interested in HF HAs too.

 

Does hearing aids for hidden hearing loss exist? For us with ”normal” audiogram but who have tinnitus?

 

I have what is considered normal hearing but some have detected a slight notch at 3 kHz or something along those lines. The audiologist is going to program one setting with the notch and one without.

 

Mine is and I quote:

”A normal audiogram with the hint of a slight treble reduction. Presbycusis of mild kind. Average of 16 dB air conduction bilaterally.”

Do you think a hearing aid would help me?

 

I have no idea. I had 2 prior fittings that failed. In this case the clinic is more laid back and offered a more affordable option and I have 90 day trial with money back. Therefore as per @Michael Leigh's suggestion, I can break them in slowly. If it fails again so be it. Just hope I don't get worse. I will most likely take up my MCBT practice again to combine.

I suggest doing a hearing aid trial. Quiet please's success is inspiring me to give it another shot.

 

My opinion is if your tinnitus is related to loss above 8000 Hz, a hearing aid isn't likely to help since they aren't made for high frequency hearing above those needed for speech.

Edit: a trial can't really hurt though.

 

If hearing loss occurs above 8000 Hz, is it hair cell death?

Thank you sooo much for the answers, really appreciate it!

 

If you have audiogram changes above 8000 Hz, then yes. Audiogram changes = outer hair cell death.

 

Thanks

 

Exactly so if it does not help, there's no financial loss...

 

@mrbrightside614, I’m surely thinking of it. But the truth is I’m still not 100% sure the tinnitus will not return. I have hope of course that it won’t, but living under its tyrannical rule for almost 11 years, I’m just not ready to commit to the word success yet. I’m just reporting the events as they occur, but feel they are in flux. This is all new to me and I am hoping to feel successful sooner than later. We’ll see and continue to hope.