Hearing Aids

Did masking your tinnitus entirely for that length of time ramp it up?

 

No, there was no worsening, but no diminution either.

 

I really can't describe it as every day is different and prior to 12th January I had middle ear myclonus which was torture on a level that is hard to imagine. Things have improved and since the surgery thankfully.

I don't have head tinnitus as much as I had before. A huge decline really. At present things are different every day and sometimes every hour, but my hearing aids definitely help me cope a little better. I could not be without them.

Hopefully my tinnitus situation will settle down at a manageable level sometime in the next year.

As for hearing aids I really think a trial of Oticon Mores or Phonaks P90's would be interesting for you. From my research they are the best two on the market at the moment.

Will hopefully help out

 

Widex gave me spikes & drove me to tears. I think my hyperacuses is not as sensitive now. I'm just going to use my bone conductors as recommended by actual professionals.

 

I’m supposed to trial Widex hearing aids soon. I have severe hyperacusis and tinnitus.

Was it the amplification that spiked you or the white noise in the hearing aids?

Thanks for the help.

 

Not sure. She actually had the hearing aid portion turned off. So basically $3600 maskers. Hence why I am ok saving my $$ and use my bone conductors. This happened after a few hours of wearing the Widex; big spike during the night, I was in tears a few hours the next day. I returned them.

The Oticon trial was not as bad. Still at the end of the 1st day of wearing them, I went to a restaurant that was loud, and ended up throwing up from the intrusiveness of the tinnitus. I went on for another month or so, eventually returning them when they failed to help.

I had more communication with the local clinic earlier. They acknowledged that they were refunding me admitting that therapies like TRT & CBT do not help everyone.

 

@DebInAustralia, I may be a little late to the party. You may want to seek an audiologist for a hearing test. They are for the most part free for people over 55 in Canada (of course they are looking to sell you hearing aids). Depending on the results, a pair of bone conducting headphones may suffice. Reason of using those vs. earbuds is they leave the ear canals open. I am finding pleasant results with Bluetoothing nature sounds from an app & actual natural sounds blend together.

 

The Bose HearPhones were excellent for tinnitus amelioration apparently. They have been discontinued unfortunately but might be able to pick them up off eBay. The Bose hearing aids have no Bluetooth streaming.

I totally agree that if there is no hearing loss, then hearing aids are not necessary, but if there is hearing loss sub 8 kHz, you will find them helpful. They are also very discreet. I never thought I'd be wearing hearing aids at 46 years old, but I actually don't mind them at all. The iPhone streaming sounds are excellent too in 'background noise' but that would apply to headphones as well.

 

@Padraigh Griffin, I agree with everything you said about hearing aids, although mine is noise induced, I share a number of the symptoms you've spoken about. Frustrating that it's so different for everyone - every day is waking up (assuming I've slept) to wondering what level is it going to be today. There's a threshold below which I can tolerate and above which I cannot (there was a time when it was stable which was no problem to habituate to). Also, the mere fact of driving a car or flying exacerbates significantly even with earplugs which is really crazy and would love to know if that's every going to settle where I can behave normally in these situations and not like some crazy person ever again!

Back on point though - a question - I have Oticon hearing aids and would like to play with the settings myself. How did you get it from the Oticon site? It seems you need to set yourself up as a hearing professional to access or is there another way/source?

 

Hey. I downloaded it from the Oticon website but you are right, it seems to require registration now. It didn't when I downloaded it. You also need a Noahlink Wireless to connect to the hearing aids. I'll search for the software a little bit more.

 

I asked my audiologist again in regards to still possibly trialing Phonak. This was her response:

The reason I did not recommend a hearing aid trial with a Phonak hearing aid is due to your history of no benefit with sound therapy for your tinnitus. All sound therapy works on the same theoretical framework, and one manufacturer of hearing aid will not have a different approach to sound therapy to any other. In your case, someone with hearing within the normal levels from 0.25 - 8 kHz, sound therapies can be delivered through traditional headphones or speaker system. Until there has been an extensive attempt to work with sound therapies that you already have access to, I would not proceed with another hearing aid trial.​

 

To bobvann:

I'm interested in that comment "due to your history of no benefit with sound therapy." Is it because your tinnitus is reactive? Or because layering an artificial white noise on top of the tinnitus sound creates too high a volume?

She's entirely correct about every manufacturer's sound "therapy" being the same as any other. Just as alcohol is the same whether it is in beer or vodka, white noise is essentially the same regardless of all of the available different brands.

At least she had the professional integrity to not have attempted to sell you something that she knew would be of no avail.

 

Needless to say I feel like I have posted evidence backing my claims, i.e., the response with the refund from the health authority, the TRT trained audiologist that claimed that using bone conductors or earbuds is adequate if one does not suffer significant hearing loss and now this.

I think its important to share these truths since there are a lot of practitioners out there looking to take advantage like they did in my early days. Good thing there is a trial period for the devices, but still out of a few grand for a few $300.00 "tinnitus assessments" which is a regular hearing and acoustic reflex test for the most part.

Having said all that, some do benefit from them and good for them truly.

 

I have Signia Silk.

 

Thanks for reporting back. It has inspired me to give hearing aids another go.

Can I ask if you have head noise? If so, has that improved at all in annoyance or volume?

 

How do you know what frequency your tinnitus is at?

Mine started 3 months ago in one ear then gradually moved to both ears after a month. Sounds change throughout the day. I was told by ENT that I have moderate hearing loss and should think about hearing aids? But am concerned that I will not get something helpful f I am unaware of my tinnitus frequencies.

Any advice would be helpful and greatly appreciated.

 

They will program the hearing aids based on your hearing loss and amplify the frequencies in which you have loss. If you have hearing loss that can be treated by hearing aids, it may help with the tinnitus.

 

I've said this about my own tinnitus when the long-term use of ear drops for inner ear infection was a suspected cause of my tinnitus. The damage in one ear due to e.g., breakdown of stereocilia (tiny batches of hair cells inside the snail shaped cochlea) means the signal pulses are relayed back incorrectly with the detector increasing its own signal to compensate for the drop - resulting in a higher pitch tinnitus. The breakdown of the stereocilia in my case has not been determined but is suspected to have been caused by extensive use of ear drops treating an inner ear infection.

 

What do you mean by head noise?

 

Tinnitus perceived to be coming from the head.

 

Yes, my crickets sound I would consider a head sound. The annoyance level has definitely gone down, but the volume is the same.

 

The hearing aids I have are $7000 a pair. All they do is hook me up to my cell phone to listen to music or take calls. Then when someone talks to me, I can't hear them unless I turn off the music. It's crazy.

Truth is, in my opinion, there simply is no cure or even anything to lessen the tinnitus. I'm getting psych therapy to help me cope with this. I've had it since 1971 when I had my first tour of combat in Vietnam. I was able to handle that but then came COVID-19. Got it and then got my ass handed to me with rapid sensorineural hearing loss. Hearing just shut down in one second in my right ear and was replaced with the wonderful sound of a jet engine which is amazing to try to sleep to. I haven't slept a night in months. AND THEN CAME the vaccination. And you guessed it, it put that jet engine sound into hyper space! I'm 70 now and really hope I don't have a lot of time left to deal with this. I'm not going to speed it up but, I sure will welcome it unless they get some kind of cure.

There just wouldn't be enough money to be made if someone was able to figure it out. I don't know why they can't come up with some kind of hearing aid that can give you a series of sounds that are the exact opposite of what you are hearing so as to cancel it out. But I'm not a doctor so I don't know the mechanics, I just wish this frigging jet in my head would leave the runway!

Along with tinnitus I also have the inability to spell very well so save the spelling comments.

Roger out!

 

Yesterday I went to another clinic of the same franchise. This audiologist did run an audiogram. I will be trialing Phonak hearing aids but not the 90's, the model one below. 90's are 8 grand here! She did agree that they are mostly to be used as maskers.

 

I had the Phonak Audeo 70 on trial for a month. The audiologist customized it to compensate for the tiny frequency losses (the theory being that what would be insignificant losses for the majority of people, could be be more impactful on another small subset of people and trigger tinnitus), and we tried various noise programs. It didn’t have any effect. I returned them back at the end of the month.

My tinnitus is very high pitched (around 12 kHz), and that doesn’t help when most hearing aids stop at 10 kHz.

So, after trialing 4 anti-epileptics at low doses, and the hearing aids, my ENT (who is considered among the best tinnitus specialists in the country) basically said “there isn’t anything else we can try, sorry. Bye bye.”

 

My current hearing aid go only to 8 kHz and I plan to move to Signia 7ax, they can reach 12 kHz and I'm hopefull it will cover more that high pitch tinnitus.

We'll see...

 

Awesome news. FDA just approved OTC hearing aid. Should be available within 60 days. No reason to go to an audiologist as you can set them up yourself, they’ll be cheap, and who knows what Apple or Bose will come up with.

Things just got a little better!

 

Does the savings with OTC come from removing the audiologist from the equation? So if I know my audiogram, I can just buy and setup a hearing aid myself?

My audiologist won't give me hearing aids, saying that my mild hearing loss doesn't warrant it. But I'd like to try.

 

Thank very much for posting this.

I read about that today in the New York Times; the FDA has finally given approval so that the monopoly enjoyed by the ENT / Audiology Industry is dissolved.

Previously, it appeared that my audiologist had only two hearing aid manufacturers to choose from, and my cost (with no Medicare or Insurance Coverage) of $5,000.00 was on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. They essentially made it impossible to refer to any other choice (except perhaps for low priced, cheap junk on the Internet).

And you are also correct about how time-honored capitalist competetiveness on the Free Market may induce newcomers to really apply themselves to methodology that silences (not masks) this condition while hearing aids are worn.

And watch how the price may go from $5,000.00 to $1,500.00 for quite similar units.
The most telling aspect of this egregious monoply was indicated by the NYT article that said that 30 million Americans had hearing loss, but only 5 million had the money to afford hearing aids.

 

The savings comes from both cutting out the audiologist (you really don’t think you can do 90% as accurate a job with hearing device and an app at home?) and the monopoly is gone. Suddenly every tech or audio company in the world can make a device to help your hearing, it no longer needs to be registered as a medical device. Companies make some really good headphones and mics for a couple/few hundred bucks.

 

Yes it comes from removing all the extra fees of the exam, fitting, and all that.