Hearing Aid

I was told the hairs in my inner ear were also damaged. What test was done to test you for this? Thank you for your response.

 

Give the hearing aid a good, fair trial. Don't give up on it too quickly. I got mine a few months ago and it was the best decision I've made to date, after 6 years of Meniere's. Not only has it greatly assisted the moderate hearing loss (one ear, so far), I've gotten unexpected relief from much of the awful fullness, and tinnitus as well. I'd say 80% decrease most days over what the fullness had been, and at least 50% improvement on the tinnitus. Give it a good try for sure!

 

question regarding the hearing aid, will it help with the distortion? what brand/type is reliable and is it truethat you need to replace the hearing aid every 3-5 years?

thanks

 

I too have recently started with a hearing aid for my affected ear. It has helped an incredible amount with the tinnitus. I still have slight tinnitus in both ears when I'm in a completely quiet room, but the hearing aid covers most of the hearing loss in my affected ear. I am very lucky to be a US government employee. We have really good insurance, and it covers all of the hearing aid cost for what I have. Now if I needed two, I would have to kick in quite a bit or go with a cheaper model. The audiologist I went to set it up specifically for my hearing loss. They use a "notch therapy" to cover the lost decibels. When I take it out it seems like a fire alarm going off in my head. I can't believe that I lived with that sound for so long. It does take some getting used to.
As to the fullness, it did not touch the aural fullness at all. My ENT has just put me on Nortryptiline (sp?), a mild anti-depressant that is supposed to help with migraines. It seems as though it might be helping. But like all other treatments, this could just be a good couple of days. With any luck it will at least help a bit.
I am convinced that all of the therapies that our doctors put us through only confuse our systems for a piece of time. After we readjust, our symptoms return. That's the way it feels to me, but I have always built up a tolerance to meds very quickly. That's why I try and stay away from them. I often sound like a junkie when I go in for a surgery. "You're gonna a lot more than that to knock me out."
Sorry to ramble. Good luck to you.
NEVER GIVE UP. Your solution is out there.

 

I'm also very, very fortunate to have very good insurance. My aid was covered 100% after my (relatively small) deductible. If my other ear goes south, I can go back to the audiologist who will order a second one which will also be covered. I know. I'm very lucky.

Mine is Widex -- one of the smaller ones -- I opted for small and discrete over the (slightly) larger model that also had bluetooth. I decided since I only have it on the one side, Bluetooth would be weird to use.

Nothing says you have to replace them every 3-5 years but the technology on these things changes so rapidly that a new aid now is leaps and bounds above what one 5 years ago was. I'm not sure what their expected lifespan is -- how long you get before they go bad. My insurance covers a new aid every 5 years.

I'm not sure about helping with distortion but for tinnitus, many models (including mine) have a tinnitus masking component that the doctor can turn on. You can choose from different sounds and volumes. She demo'ed it for me and it drove me insane within 30 seconds so I opted to turn it off. My tinnitus can be BAD and LOUD but that masking sound felt like it'd drive me over the edge. Fortunately, by compensating for my hearing loss, my aid somewhat overrides the tinnitus, making it much much much more quiet. I don't hear it at all in normal noise, and when in a silent room it's really nothng compared to what it is without the aid. When I take it out at night, the tinnitus ramps right back up again.

 

Coach Betz- what kind of little pluggy part do you have that goes into your ear canal? Mine came with a generic soft silicone piece that was flexible and cone shaped. Very small. Sort of like in this pic, but even smaller: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/75/ff/d5/75ffd51ec431f5e49e4afa7b1dcba620.jpg

It worked great as I described above but I was having issues with it randomly popping out of my canal. The audiologist made me a custom, foam rubbery type piece to swap in that was made to mold specifically to my ear canal (apparently my ear canals are child size? very small). It's sort of like the material some ear plugs are made from. It fit like a glove and never popped out. However, it did NOTHING to help the fullness like the generic silicone cone shape thing did. I gave it a try for a week and it was awful... my fullness felt even worse than normal, forget not eliminating it. I went back and she gave me a smaller sized silicone cone thing and that is where I am now. For some unknown reason, it really alleviates most of my fullness in addition to helping the hearing and tinnitus. The fancy custom foamy thing, while it addressed the hearing (not sure about tinnitus, can't remember) it did NOTHING for fullness. Just thought I'd put that out there. Makes no sense but that's how things worked for me and my wonky ear.

 

Mine looks similar. It's a Signia. The end of mine has a "globe" on it. It's not solid. It has holes spaced a round it. She said that's because I haven't lost all of my hearing. They want me to be able to hear all of the sounds around me. It didn't help with the fullness much at all. I did have the trouble of it slipping out at first. She fitted me with a larger globe and it stays in much nicer, but I do notice that it's there. Because it lets in the ambient sound, I can hear myself talk. That takes a little getting used to. I'm an air traffic controller and I have an earpiece in at work almost all of the time, so that transition didn't take too long. I'm really hoping the Nortriptyline helps. It seems like maybe it is, but I don't have my hopes to high.

 

The first few days of wearing my hearing aid were tough. There was a lot of sensory overload, in my humble opinion. When I mentioned this to the audiologist, she kind of shrugged it off. I think hearing sounds coming from a different direction can be very disorienting. I can finally hear crickets in my bad ear and the are annoying as all get out.
But to answer your question, yes, I felt very "off" for a few days. I even felt like I shouldn't be driving and stayed home from work.

 

Yes use aids if you need. Be patient it takes a while for the brain to get used to this new sound. When I was able to use them....I was shocked that the toilet made a sucking sound when flushed. Ha ha ha. Boy do I miss them. Don't give up. Get them reprogramed if needed as time goes by. By the way that chirping sound outside are birds.

 

Hearing aids never helped me, in fact made it worse. Av's got rid of my tinnitus over time. I was lucky i guess.

 

I had to pay 3 grand out of pocket for mine. If any anyone's insurance covered theirs I don't want to hear about it. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT!

 

I just ordered the following

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ENMH7N8/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Not an "official" hearing aid, but an amplifier. Much cheaper, approx. $150.

My insurance won't cover them so I couldn't see shelling out thousands of dollars on a real hearing aid.

I've lost a lot of the hearing in my affected ear (my right) and I'm just hoping to be able to hear better and get rid of the "huhs" and "whats" from my conversations with the wife and others. If it helps with the tinnitus then its an added bonus.

 

Siemens is a serious company. I wish I'd seen that one before I spent 3grand. Let us know how it works out for you. I'd normally buy it and compare it with my expensive one, but I see it's not Amazon Prime/Free Returns. I may anyway, as $150 wouldn't exactly kill me. Maybe keep it in my car as a back-up in case I forget to bring mine somewhere. I love doing product comparisons anyway.

 

Strange. Most of the Amazon reviews for that Siemens hearing aid are for brushes. I think Amazon screwed up.

 

That's because you can actually order a few different items from that page, different models of the amplifier and also a set of hearing aid brushes. If you look just above the description of the item or below where it says how many are available, you'll see you can click on different items to order (mousing over them will show pics of the item) and one of them is a set of brushes.

Anyways, I reviewed a bunch of these type "amplifiers" and this one and the "Walkers Game ear" came back with high scores. The Walkers goes for around $200-$250, but there are a lot out there ranging from around $50 to $600. I went with this one because it has background noise reduction and two channels, but I saw good reviews for a few that ran about $70.

I'll let you all know how it works. I should have it by late next week.