Widex with Zen Hearing Aids

I have used Widex with Zen Hearing aids for two weeks now from my audiologist. You have 30 days to try them. I have not seen any improvement yet. Anybody in this forum have any experience with these. Let me know if anybody has used these.

 

Thanks for letting us know.

So, is it the neuromonics?

Did they give you a time frame for improvement?

 

No they have not give me a time frame. I guess they call it Neuromonics. The audiologist I am dealing with really cares and she is trying so hard for me I will never forget her. I have tried just about everything in the time I have the t. About 3 months.How much has this t changed your sleeping patterns? What do you do to help with your sleeping?I have to take pills now at night and that sometimes that does not help.Even with that I am always waking up.
I am taking xanax at night ant I hate it.

 

gosh... I feel your anxiety about this.

Have you tried playing ocean or rain sounds when you got to bed? I had to do that the other night when I got this extra bonus of a hum with the tinnitus. Thank God it faded. Freaked me out for sure!

 

Has anyone used Widex hearing aids with Zen Tones to help with T.I need to see what peoples thoughts are and if they think hearing aids will make the T worse.What kind of luck have they had with them.

 

Mike -
A member by the name of Arthur has made some past postings, saying that he wears the Zen device. He hasn't posted for awhile, so I'm not sure if he'll see your question. Look at his past postings.

 

If he hasn't posted, I would take that as a good sign.

 

My audiologist believes that my T is caused by high frequency hearing loss and I do agree that everything points to that conclusion. She recommends the Widex Zen HAs set for tinnitus mgmt only (not as a hearing aid since I hear fine). She talked a lot about the advantage of random sounds (fractals) versus steady masking sounds in helping the brain not latch onto the masking sound as just additional tinnitus. That does make some sense to me....

Any Widex Zen success stories or not so-successful stories? I know I get a trial period but I also value comments from my T-family here!

 

Since we are all different, and experience our tinnitus differently, I think you just need to try and see how it works. I have had a Widex Zen for a couple of weeks now, as a hearing/masking aid. I wouldn't normally need a hearing aid, but because of the tinnitus my audiologist thinks amplifying the surround sounds will help. For me the Zen doesn't work well, the tones are too subtle and after a while my brain turns down that sound and turns up the tinnitus sound so it actually makes my tinnitus worse. The tones are quite soothing and pleasant though, and it might very well work for you.

 

I tried the Widex Zen and ended up returning them.. The hearing aid part worked fine but the Zen sound drove me crazy. I could not stand the sound of the wind chime which did not seem to mask the tinnitus but was just an additional noise.

I remember my Mom had a wind chime on her front porch and it was annoying to me even as a kid.

I now have a much better pair of aids made by Re Sound. They function the same as the Widex but have a white noise tinnitus masker.

My only advise for testing hearing aids is get at least a trial period of 60 days and a no fee return privilege..30 days in my opinion is not enough time to adjust and know if you are comfortable with any aid. In addition some companies charge up to 20 percent to the original cost if you return the aids.

I rarely wear the aids tho. I can find just as much relief in wearing just the maskers. The aids give a much to loud unrealistic sound. My hearing loss is in the high frez. range and I have no loss in the low and speech range. I found that restoring my hearing to normal via use of the aids had no effect on the tinnitus, I just could hear better that was all.

 

My take on the Widex Zen Hearing Aids, is that it's not supposed to mask the tinnitus at all. The fractal tones are there to redirect your brain to another sound while it still can still hear the ringing. This will retrain your brain to stop focusing on the tinnitus and focus on other sounds. It also helps because it should be more soothing and comforting, not like white noise. This concept is similar to the Neuromonics, which uses music. Masking is good for the short term (instant gratification), but retraining takes a little more time (couple months) and will have lasting effects. Now I'm not an expert, but if you read the literature on both concepts, retraining your brain is the best way to go for the long term. The good thing about the Widex Zen, is you can add masking sounds, with the Zen programs if you want.
Regarding the Widex Zen, my audiologist said its a process that's not going to happen overnight, so you need to give it some time. The result your looking for is complete habituation of the tinnitus, which may take a month or longer.

To expect it to happen in a few weeks is probably unrealistic. Both the Widex Zen and the Neuromonics make sense to me. Both theories make sense. Either one should work with time, but I also feel counseling along with the Zen or Neuromonics will speed up the process. All the tools together will speed up the process.

Mark K.

 

I am in the middle of testing Widex Zen model Dream 220 FS-Rite since December 19, 2014. I did get them to go 60 days on the warranty. My hearing is quite normal in the low frequency range as well as the clarity of words. I have 25-30% loss in in the high frequency range. I have already had two adjustments. One was to get rid of the white noise that played at the same time as the zen chimes. It was nothing more than a hissing sound that started to really bother me. They could have adjusted it to a lower volume but I decided to get rid of it for now. The chimes work for me best at quiet times like when watching TV or working on the computer or in general around the house. You can go to the Widex website and hear EXACTLY how the Zen chimes sound. When I leave home, because of the natural sounds in my environment, I can't hear the chimes at all. When out I will go back and forth between the Comfort setting (less amplification from the rear) and the Master setting. I have noticed some masking of the tinnitus going on when in Master and Zen mode. The external sounds almost seem to be too loud and I need to decide to whether to have the the overall volume reduced. Jury is still out on all of this for me. For certain the tinnitus is still raging all the while I wear the hearing aids. The distractions from the chimes as well as the general loudness of the hearing aid seem to be having an effect. For certain the aids provide a needed distraction (albeit small) from the tinnitus. I am only 3 weeks into wearing them and hope they will will help me to habituate to tinnitus.

In my research and talking to others it seems that the more sever the hearing loss the better Zen and hearing aids work.

I shall watch this thread with extreme interest.

Dennis M

 

Has anyone out there used Widex Zen Theraphy?

If so what is your impression of this product and therapy?

 

Well first of all have the Zen hearing aids with of course the gong sounds and also have the white noise sounds. I wear them practically all day using both features. I try to keep both features at there lowest level so that I can hear my tennitus but still get a little relief from the high pitch noise associated with my ringing problem. I'm sold on my hearing aids as they do help. We all know about our t's spiking and when that occures especiallly in the morning I just push the butttons on my Zen to the louder sounds and mask the noise to it setttles back down. I have a set of the older wings that were first used with trt program and they still work but my hearing lose is so bad that I cannot hear the slight noise theses devices give out. I know they work as I had my wife try them on and her hearing is almost perfect. Got a question for Dr. Nager and that is do they still manufacture the old wing style for TRT? Anyway I truly think that the Zen hearing aids are the best for helping out with our head noise. Jon

 

Sad to say that I returned my Zen hearing aids yesterday for a full refund. I tried the white noise + chimes and could hear the T throughout the testing period. The chimes were soothing but did little to impact the T.

 

Did the audiologist tell you this was a masking device or was it to prompt habituation?

 

I am interested to hear if anyone continued with the Widex ZEN system for a prolonged period.
I have them and wore them for maybe 6 weeks - but could never keep them in for the required time.
I think I was already in habituation mode at that point, but I always wondered if I kept with the program if it would help with my H.
I still have the machines and would be willing to try again if it was something that might make a diff w H.

 

I have a widex dream with the bells as maker. It does help but i think that white noise may work better. I am getting a widex unique tomorrow and hope that a new kind of masker can be programmed in. Quite frankly an ipod ap of tropical rainforest sounds works best for relief. The cricket sounds are best

 

Hi,

I've done a bit of research based on the work of Dr. Sweetow. The Widex brand of hearing aids incorporates these wind chime-like generated tones as a form of tinnitus therapy. I am looking for the best option. Right now I have a trial period underway with a pair of Siemens (Signia) hearing aids that have an ocean wave therapy signal programmed into them. It's ok, but the sounds generated by it do not cover the frequency range where my tinnitus pitch is, and so I'm not sure how helpful it will really be. Then again, I just listened to a few youtube clips of examples of these Zen tones and, while being very musical, they are all also at a much lower frequency range. Nice to listen to, but nowhere near the 8KHz or so where my tinnitus pitch is. Any thoughts from anyone who has used Widex?

Thanks,
Keith

 

https://aja.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2633285
"Results Results indicated that all participants benefited from this sequential approach of providing different components of this tinnitus treatment. Large benefits were observed following the tinnitus activities treatment and the Zen treatments."

 

@Bill Bauer I used the Zen fractal chime ear devices for a longtime with first onset of T and I'm sure that it made my hearing and tinnitus worst after more tests. Most within the hearing industry are honest, accurate with helpful testing methods, give great advice and have state of the art hearing devices to help with hearing and tinnitus.

However, I don't think that placing zen fractal chime tones into your ear is a best method. Maybe the white tones are better. When I received my zens, my audiologist said that there were no studies and at that time she wished that they weren't thrown onto the market without studies. Who's to say that certain studies on any consumer product or service can't be bought and paid for. Even with A m a z o n reviews, many are so obviously phony.

 

Widex nothing for me, I got one when I first got tinnitus, I saw an audiologist who found I had slight HF hearing loss in one ear, who recommended a Widex Zen hearing aid.

The masking tones were useless and just added an extra annoyance to the tinnitus. Wearing the hearing aid did help slightly at first but when I got used to them there was no Improvement in my case (placebo effect maybe??).

A complete waste of £1500.

I found headphones with nature sounds ripped from YouTube much better at the onset.