New participant looking for recommendation

[Chris Long]

Hi everyone,

My name is Chris and I am here for my mother who has been a long term patient with Tinnitus. However, recently her hearing has gotten a lot worse and as her son I have become increasingly more worried. We are exploring some options for her new hearing aids and so I am here in hopes of getting some recommendation on which hearing aids would best suit her condition.

My mother consulted the Costco audiology department and they informed her that the Siemens would not be strong enough for her and instead recommended the ReSound Forza. Does anyone have any idea on whether or not this would be suitable for her condition?

I have attached her hearing test results here thanks for any recommendations or ideas:

250---500---750---1000---1500---2000---3000---4000---60000---8000

R : 20-----45----80------80------70-----75--------70------65-------65--------50

L : 20-----45----90------85------75-----80--------75------60-------65--------65

 

[erik]

Hi Chris, you are better off talking to a few hearing specialists. Ask them if they have had experience with tinnitus patents and try to find one who has. Because you have the results, all should give you recommendations for no charge. Most will even let you try them out for 30 days or longer. ReSound is a good company and Starkley just came out with Xino tinnitus hearing aid. However, just a good hearing aid in general will help her out.

 

[Karl]

Chris -
Your mother may greatly benefit from having hearing aids. Here's a good article:
http://www.audicare.com.br/pdf/Hearing-aid.pdf

According to research mentioned in this paper, perhaps as many as 90% of tinnitus patients may benefit from hearing aid amplification. The vast majority of all tinnitus patients have some hearing loss.

I have Widex hearing aids for slight to moderate hearing loss. For example, my right ear scores about a 40 at 4KHz. Your mom's audiogram results are pretty high, in the 80's. But what looks good, in my opinion, is her loss is somewhat balanced between the ears. I'm of the opinion that tinnitus is caused by an imbalance in loss between the ears, which is why I think I got it. (My mother has very bad hearing, but no tinnitus. )

I think she'll need one of the better models, which are the more expensive. Hearing aids are priced depending on the number of amplifiers they have. My Widex Dream series has only 3 amplifiers. I think that the more expensive models may have 12 amplifiers.

I believe that in the US, audiologists must give a patient a 45 day try-out period, by law. There are some very nice hearing aids avaiable these days. The Widex Zen series have tinnitus features which sound like wind chimes. Some hearing aids have very cool features for listening to the TV and answering the telephone. Most are blue-tooth enabled and can communicate with mobile phone devices.

 

[Chris Long]

Thanks a lot guys, we are exploring all options. My mother's tinnitus has greatly affected her hearing and we have had a bad experience with her first set of hearing aids. I hope Costco will prove to be a better source of aid.

 

[Karl]

Chris -
Hearing aids can take some time to get use to. For a person with bad hearing, it can be a shock to put the hearing aids on.

Hearing aids are typically set to gradually increase in volume. If they are given to a person at full volume, it's too intense an experience. That's why they have this gradual feature, so that people can get accustomed to them.

When I first got mine, it drained me the first few days. Then my audiologist adjusted them, and I've had no problems since.