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Hearing aids, what's it like to have them?
Getting to that age that I know my hearing is declining and I have steady tinnitus, which I'm pretty used to already. Conversation in a quiet room is no problem but in a busy restaurant I have to concentrate and strain to pick up what's being said. I can tell I have to play things a bit louder than I used to. I'm delaying going to an audiologist for a test out of anxiety that I'll have to get hearing aids.
Which makes me wonder what they're really like - How does using them change your hearing? Do you get back the crisp highs and lows in music? Is conversation in a noisy place easier? How much maintenance do they require?
I’ve had them for over a decade. I highly recommend them but they take some getting used to. When I got them I was surprised to hear birds chirping and realized I hadn’t in quite a while, but it’s also like having an invisible foley artist following you around and adding sound effects to everything you do.
It’s odd but you get used to it, like getting a new pair of glasses. Also remember you can adjust the volume or take them out, so you don’t have to wear them all day at first.
They help a bit in noisy places for hearing the person in front of you, but not that much and I still avoid noisy places when I can. On an airplane I sometimes wear them turned off, sort of like earplugs, which reduces noise a bit.
Music
Unlike with regular audio equipment, the system is mostly oriented towards improving how well you understand speech, not making music sound better. Standard hearing tests check frequencies needed for voice recognition and also test your understanding of words. My prescription boosts the highs a lot. This is to boost sibilants like ‘s’ and ‘t’ sounds but it it also affects the sounds of things like cymbals, and makes a piano sound like a toy piano.
I’m an amateur musician so I had the audiologist add a separate setting on my hearing aids that turns down the high-frequency amplification a lot, and on top of that, I turn down the volume even more. When set that way, they don’t do very much, but they do boost the highs a bit and I like how it sounds. But understanding people is a lot harder and I need to remember to switch back and forth.
(That’s just pressing a button on a hearing aid, but convenience is very important in live situations. It’s possible to temporarily fiddle with hearing aid settings using my phone, but the app is so terrible that I don’t bother.)
My latest hearing aids have bluetooth. This is great for phone calls, which I used to dread. But since the speakers are designed for voice (little bass response) I don’t consider them really good enough for listening to recorded music. I use AirPod Pros for that along with an iPad. Apple has a simple hearing test that adjusts the EQ. It’s not as flexible as I’d like but the result is good. (I did get them replaced under warranty. I guess I’m hard on audio equipment?)
For live music (including playing my own), bass isn’t really a problem since the hearing aid has a vent that lets it through. A problem with the vent, though, is that sound goes the other way, from the speaker in your ear to the microphone, and this can result in feedback, just like with any other audio equipment. Any decent hearing aid will have feedback suppression, but in mine this affects how music sounds, so in “music mode” it’s turned off, and that’s another reason I have the frequency response turned way down.
Wearing hearing aids for music was a bit philosophically disorienting because I realized that “normal” hearing isn’t really a thing for me and how things sound to me is a choice, even for live music on acoustic instruments. I play music so it sounds good to me, but what do people with more “normal” hearing hear? This is probably a good argument for working with music teachers.
Maintenance
My current hearing aids are rechargeable, and after a while, the battery didn’t last all day, so I got them replaced under warranty. My previous hearing aids took disposables that lasted a week, but I needed to keep buying them.
My hearing aids eventually get clogged with earwax and the volume goes down a lot. With my new ones, the domes (covering the microphones in my ears) are cheap, flexible disposables and I like that; when they get clogged and cleaning doesn’t help, I replace them. I can buy more on Amazon, too.
These are expensive, delicate electronic devices and moisture is bad for them, so getting caught in the rain without a hat isn’t good. For the over-the ear models I wear, I have had to get the tubes connecting the hearing aids to the earpieces replaced multiple times, which will be under warranty at first. It happens less often since I’ve learned to be more careful.
I think it’s best to assume that they may break and technology will improve, so don’t get too attached or too excited about getting high-end hearing aids. Replacement parts are important. Getting five years out of them is probably pretty good?
Buying them
Costco is well known for having relatively low-cost hearing aids. You can get a hearing test from them. I almost bought hearing aids from them, but the warranty isn’t great so I went with Kaiser. Maybe that’s okay if you know what you want and don’t buy anything expensive.
I’m not sure I like Kaiser for this, though, since it can be hard to get an appointment and my relationship with the audiologist isn’t all that great. When I was traveling, I got a tube replaced with a local hearing aid shop. It seems like I could get better service if I found the right person in the right store and this would help for my more unusual requests regarding music?
Ideally I’d like to adjust the EQ myself, at least for the music setting.
Would the ear wax be possible to clean out with the kinds of putty that is made for cleaning out regular ear buds maybe?
I’m not familiar with it so I don’t know.
There are other ways to make ear pieces. My first pair had custom-molded ear pieces made out of harder, transparent plastic, but I found it difficult to clean the insides. Also, the left one would often fall out. The audiologist made different molds using a different process, but I liked those less.
With the new ones, a hearing aid falling out is still occasionally a problem, but I got into the habit of pushing them in regularly. The disposable bits can be cleaned to get more life out of them, but they’re soft plastic and seem to wear out over time, and they’re cheap so it’s not really worth it.
One reason I like the disposable domes (and ear pieces) better is because it means I effectively have my own supply of spare parts, at least for certain problems. I think that’s better than a part that I can’t replace easily myself, particularly since I can take them with me when traveling. For the tubes I had to find a shop that had the right spare, because they don’t just sell those parts.
Ideally I’d have more spare parts, or even a backup pair, much like people sometimes have spare glasses.
This is also a reason I’m not entirely sold on built-in rechargeable batteries that I don’t have a spare for.
A tale as old as time.
Don't delay. Just go. You don't have to get hearing aids if you don't want to. But you will not know what can be done until you go.
There might also be something OP could prevent is s/he got to an ENT soon enough.
Not likely. When the OP was about 35 he went to an unfamiliar mechanic shop and while working on airing up a bus suspension was asked to disconnect an air line on the shop wall. Unfortunately it was not your normal psi air but a very high pressure line, and pulling off a connector resulted in a concusive bang that deafened OP for more than a day in one ear. The damage was instant. OP really regrets disconnecting that line as his hearing has never been the same since. That was 26 years ago.
(offtopic)
‘they’ covers any and all singular humans
Kind of presumptive not to consider OP isn't an extraterrestrial.
kind of presumptive to only consider terrestrial entities capable of humanity
I think they’re still covered !
In terms of writing style use of 'they' wasn't really acceptable not all that long ago. In the 90s at university I couldn't use they, it had to be 'he', 'she', or 'he or she'. My wife in a professional capacity has only found it to be acceptable to use they in the past decade.
This is the case in formal writing ("they" is winning out now but it's quite recent) but it's never been the case for casual language. Singular "they" to describe an unknown person is attested as far back as Chaucer and is older than singular "you'. The prohibition against it in formal writing was always artificial and is just as pointless as other made-up rules with no foundation in actual English grammar (such as "Don't split infinitives" or "Don't end sentences with a preposition", both of which were entirely artificial attempts to conform English to Latin grammar). It's an extremely good thing that formal writing is finally adapting to reality again after all this time.
I use they/them as my preferred pronouns (a usage which is very recent in the grand scheme of things) but using "they" like this in a casual discussion like this one has never been controversial in the history of modern English.
To continue the off-topicness:
I wonder if the international feedback into English through social media used by non-native speakers has encouraged the use of "they". Many other languages use a gender neutral plural word for unknown singular persons as well, and it carries over into how we use English words.
My only experience with speakers of languages with no gendered third person pronouns is with Mandarin Chinese (I double-majored in it in college), and they typically would use "he" or "she" but just screw it up sometimes. But I think singular they is often not taught in classes for non-native speakers so that might be a factor there?
I'm glad that it isn't just me! Until the surprising resurgence of that way of using it in the past few years, it always felt quite awkward and forced to say it in that way.
Which country are you in?
UK
My Dad is 70 and had been fighting getting hearing aids for several years. Over that same time, I had noticed a decline in his participation/awareness in conversations and general confusion that I worried was dementia. He finally did get hearing aids, and it's like he's a new person. He tells jokes again (and laughs at them), is engaged in conversation. He also does more with the grandkids.
He can control the hearing aids from an app on his phone and generally use them like bluetooth earbuds, including tapping them to accept a call. They are essentially invisible.
I just asked him if he had any problems with them, and he said none at all. He also said the best things about them were the he could take phone calls with them and that they charge in the case so he doesn't have to mess with batteries. He said they were on the higher end of the options available and cost $6500.
Anecdotally my mother hates the Bluetooth feature on her hearing aids
Fair point. It should be noted that my Dad is pretty techy.
I just got a new set from the VA yesterday, they are an upgrade from my old ones.
They are rechargeable and have built in bluetooth. I love the things. The old ones I needed to wear a device like a big necklace to connect them. I listen to audiobooks thru them all the time.
The only drawback is they try to adjust settings based on background noise. They have like a restaurant, music and TV setting. I was walking thru a grocery store today, and the bad music from the speakers and loud carts would trigger different settings, it was slightly disconcerting.
My dad seems to need to make manual adjustments in the app foe things like restaurant mode. He also said that his brother-in-law was having trouble with his hearing aids in restaurants, and he just called the person who sold him the hearing while he was in the place that caused the problem, and she remotely adjusted them. I don't know if that's an option for you, but it seemed amazing to think about.
My latest pair has remote adjustment in theory, but Kaiser didn’t have it set up. It would be more amazing to me if I could adjust them myself. There’s clearly no physical reason for it; they just don’t trust you with the settings.
There is a very dumbed-down version that runs badly on a smart phone and resets when I stop using it, and a more sophisticated desktop app that the audiologist uses for changing the default settings. From watching them use it, the software didn’t seem all that hard to use; it’s a glorified EQ and the audiologists don’t seem all that technically sophisticated.
I hope there's a setting to disable the "auto-adjust", I can see that causing problems in the long run. I also wonder what it uses to determine which setting should activate, particularly since you mentioned a restaurant setting. I'd assume it would be based on lots of chatter, but lately there's been a trend of restaurants with exposed ceilings which creates awful acoustics. Just endless echoing. As someone with very good hearing, it's hard to have a normal conversation. I don't want to imagine how much it could mess with hearing aids that automatically adjust the setting.
I just caught up to my RSS feeds today and found this post through daring fireball: https://toot.cat/@garry/110005074038777944
Same stuff from Ars Technica a year ago: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/study-airpods-pro-are-this-close-to-being-full-fledged-hearing-aids/
I've personally used my AirPod Pros as hi-tech earplugs for a good year, they don't muffle the sound like actual foam plugs but rather they bring the noise down to healthy levels while still letting you hear the music and people's voices.
Airpods are great but they’re not designed to wear all day. I have both Airpods and hearing aids and I use them for different things.
I do hope that Apple comes out with real hearing aids someday.
I have one hearing aid because I have hearing loss and tinnitus in one ear.
It's not a magic device that can make my nerve work, so hearing with a hearing aid is not the same as hearing before I went deaf in that ear, and I still need people on that side of me to speak a bit more slowly and a bit more clearly.
It does help with tinnitus though, and I find I have less tinnitus at night when I've been using my aid during the day.
Hearing loops are useful if they're turned on and working -- this is surprisingly few of them.
My aid is pretty simple - it has some directionality, and a hearing loop function. I carry round a card to remind me how to access the different functions because "beep boop" or "beep beep boop" in my ear isn't enough for me to know what it's doing yet. I guess I'll learn that.
I'm in the UK so the tests, the hearing aids, the fitting, and the replacement batteries and accessories are all free.
I got out of the habit of wearing it during covid pandemic, but I'll need to start wearing it more now more meetings are face to face.
I developed severe tinnitus in both ears at 27 with no probable cause and it was very frightening and anxiety inducing to do audiograms and other hearing exams at such an age not even knowing why this was happening to me (not to mention getting used to the condition in the first place, many sleepless nights were had...), but I promise you it's worth it so you know what exactly is right for you. It brought me a lot of relief to know what exactly was happening and what I could do.
My tinnitus TRT hearing aid is life changing. I wrote about it here.
It does interfere with music, but you can make the volume lower, or turn them off for a while if you wish.
In practice, it doesn't bother me at all. Ever. I absolutely love it.
That is indeed a compelling post. My tinnitus doesnt really bother me that much but then again, I dont remember what it was like to NOT have it, so maybe I'd be amazed if it was gone. Thanks for the posting your experience.
Thanks for the question and to all who responded with information. I'm supposed to get a baseline audiogram because I'm taking a couple of medications that are known to have ototoxicity risks.
The ototoxicity problem is something many people aren't aware of - even very commonly used over-the-counter pain relievers can cause hearing loss when consumed daily.
I've also been delaying an appointment, mostly because my insurance won't cover it. It's suspicious that I used to be able to hear if a mosquito was anywhere in the room with me, and now it has to be buzzing my head. That, along with more frequent tinnitus, has me running a bit scared. I've been very careful with my hearing lifelong because both my mother and my spouse are unilaterally stone deaf, and seeing the challenges they've faced is deeply troubling.
I've been thinking about getting the less-expensive DIY version of hearing aids, where you can manipulate the settings to your own comfort. AirPods would probably be as much I'd need.
Having worked with audiologists in a medical setting, I was always surprised at the relatively primitive tools in use for testing, and the gross expense of customized hearing aids. I'm by no means an expert, but I've always suspected audiology was a career in great danger of being supplanted by better hardware and software.
That is also a side effect of growing older, for no other reason than just age. Not being able to hear higher pitches anymore is typically how age related hearing loss happens. Not that it changes the practical outcome for you, just hoping it might shift some of the nervousness away from it being related to other kinds of illnessess.
Been using hearing aids since I’m teens and I’m in my 40s now. Now a days they have blue tooth. I still hate using hearing aids because if they’re in for hours my ears are begging to take them out. Buying filters suck. I love listening to music while listening to people is a blessing but I gott take them out. Just relieving. I used to hate wearing them because I hated people for judging me, but now l need them and stopped caring.