words that ramble

[digitS']

Nooooo!

 

[so lucky]

The last couple years of my dad's life, he was using some hearing aides that were given to him by a friend of Mom's, that belonged to her deceased husband. She said they cost $5 thousand. They were fitted to Dad's ears by the technician for the company, at no cost. Served him fairly well. He lost one, but I still have what I suppose is a $2500 hearing aide. I wonder if I could find someone that could use it. A few more years and I may be able to use it myself.
Steve, I hope you don't get too discouraged with yours. They are, or can be a real pain to use, but, like you say, if you can hear the birds, and the voices of little kids, it is probably worth the aggravation.

 

[hoodat]

One of the problems is that they keep making them more and more "invisible". By making them smaller they put the mike right up against the speaker. By the time you crank them up enough to hear they start that damnable squeal which sends me right up the wall. I could also never get them to last more than a year or so no matter how expensive they were and the batteries last about a day and are very expensive. At a couple of thousand I'll do without them. That's a lot of money for one years worth of hearing.
The answer to me was to go the other route and use a personal amplifier that clips to the belt with the earbuds. Forget invisible. Half the people you see nowadays have a box hanging from their belt and are wearing earphones for music etc. People don't even know they are a hearing aid, they just think you're listening to your tunes. You can unclip them from your belt and put them on the table right next to the person you'r talking to and even in a noisy place you can hear what they''re saying. A nice bonus is that even the best ones usually cost under $200 and use common AA batteries. They have others that cost over a thousand but my buds who know amplifiers tell me they're just the same thing in a fancier package.
Word recognition is a whole seperate problem and it all depends on whether the problem is in the brain or the ear. If it's in the ear they can help but if the problem is the connection between the ear and brain it gets more complicated.

 

[digitS']

Hey! Hoodat saying I've got a few wires loose?!!

We all lose the higher tones with age. Blast those tones into a damaged part of the ear . . ? Scar tissue is only going to gain so much from that.

Wiring in the brain benefits from practice. How long ago was that practice after all these decades. After an overnight sleep, I have trouble finding my way out the backdoor and thru the yard! Being disorganized has its positives, tho'! Yeah, life can be full of surprises (A.A. Milne ).

These things have Bluetooth!! Right now, all they do is talk to each other. Yeah, they try to balance and that provides direction. If I ain't looking at it, I can't hear it . . . that could lead to surprises! Anyway, I could put a microphone on the other side of the room, I guess. Might make for more things to go wrong.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

I know what ya mean Digit!

(mumbles something about that not many of us really know what it means...)

Tryna pick up a Hippy Chick with tinnitus is not easy when the catch phrase is "I hear ya".

Do you fill in the blanks?

"I s.. an ________ fly across the ___, and __ ___ really ___ __ there."

Not only that, but those blanks are filled with "wa waah wa wahh dabiddl skadabla blahhh".

So, I'm become the expert at fill in the blanks. Amazing how well I can fake it!

BUT OHHHHHHHHHHH AND whoaaa's when I get it all wrong!

Someone says "Today's thursday", and I answer "No thanks I'm not at all thirsty." ...and add to that!!!!! Then I start off on the story about the time I walked through the desert, WONDERING WHYINHECK they are looking at me in such amazement!

So, best ya can do is have a sense of humor about it!

Oh yea! Music...
Remember the ole Mad magazine "sung to the tune of" where they change the lyrics? I ALWAYS GET LYRICS ALL WRONG!!! Always have, always will!

 

[catjac1975]

Can you get some a speech pathologist to help? So sad for you.

Remember Lou Ferrigno? Remember Marlee Matlin in the movie about a school for the deaf, "Children of a Lesser God" . . ? Remember how they talk? I'm relying on memory for that.

I seem to be losing my ability to pronounce words properly. I don't know what it sounds like when I move my mouth in a certain way and not another.

I wore hearing aids for nearly 30 years and finally stopped wearing them 3 weeks ago. They weren't helping. I saw the ENT doctor about 5 months ago and got a pat on the head with some encouragement to buy new hearing aids because, "comprehension would be improved." I don't know. It is about the same thing that was said the last 3 or 4 aids I have gotten. I've been disappointed.

It isn't that I don't hear some sounds. It is that I don't understand words easily. This has been going on for more than 30 years - when I was told I should have begun wearing hearing aids "probably 10 years earlier." When I was 15, I had a hearing test and was told something about having lost "30%." I thought it might have been 30% of my hearing but have been told that this would have been a severe loss so it must have meant 30% of my word comprehension. Responding to spoken words is a part of the hearing test. It isn't just responding to tones beeped into your ears.

It is kind of funny how when I wear hearing aids, people notice and often speak loudly and directly to me. When I don't wear hearing aids -- people must assume that I have normal hearing. Fooled you! Otherwise, things are about the same. I make dramatic leaps of assumption about what someone has said to me! It seems to work -- at least, I don't get beaten up often.

In 2005, I realized that I understood about 1 word out of 10 that was spoken during a meeting. I decided that year that me going to those meetings and playing some role in decisions had to come to an end. Gosh, it has been 8 years! I had already passed the "official" line of severely hearing impaired during the 90's. This has been one long slow slide . . .

I'd prefer not to have expressions of sympathy. My hearing loss somewhat explains my appreciation for the forum community, don't you know?! I think it is important for us to share the important things in our lives. I also think it is important for hearing people to have a little understanding of how the non-hearing may become isolated. And, if you have a disability, realize that adjusting and adapting is a lot of what life is all about.

Steve

 

[digitS']

Well, I wonder about that, Cat'.

When I was a kid . . . of about 40 , I went off to a deaf/hard of hearing center to talk to them about parenting a small child. No, children's little voices are a big problem for the hard of hearing and aids help only a little. I felt that things were potentially getting out-of-hand because of communication. Luckily, I think I kind of scared the "real kid" who thought I might be dragging her into counseling, or something . She pretty well straightened up and began making some extra efforts toward cooperating.

I stuck around a little at the hearing center and enjoyed the captioned meetings with others of what they called "late-deafened adults." I wasn't quite deaf and it wasn't a late in life sort of thing. I'd had hearing problems for many years by then. Quite a few of the group drifted off over time - I did too.

After about 15 years, I went back kind of expecting the same experience - interested professionals and moderated meetings. Nope. It all seemed to be a referral service. Checking out a moderated meeting that I was referred to, I just found the blind leading the blind :/. Sorry, there is expertise far beyond that - it just wasn't readily available any longer.

I don't think I've quite reached the stage where the hearing folks have trouble understanding me. It is just that I notice my own confusion. Maybe I will talk to the MD when I go in for the regular visit this fall. He is an internist and so has a lot of elderly patients. Probably a far more likely problem for some of them that are 10 or 15 years my senior.

Steve