Hearing Aids, Who has them, and What do you recommend?

[dennishoddy]

I have Starkey's and they are ok. But this is the first pair I have ever had so can't really tell about the different brands. They all are an expensive ripoff. Highly profitable for the sellers I guess because
of all the ads on tv all the time.

I have the Starkey Halo's.
They blue tooth to my phone, TV, and car audio. I can adjust the volume with my IPhone, and tune the frequency's if needed. Driving down the road, my Tundra directs the incoming phone call to the hearing aids.
They also have the capability to do location services. If I frequent a restaurant on a regular basis, I can set the aids to that location and set the volume, base, treble, etc to that location and save it.
Every time I go back to that restaurant, it see's the location and resets the aids to the pre programmed settings.
Playing pandora tunes through the aids is also a plus when driving down the highway with the wife when the radio volume is uncomfortable for her, and not an option for me.

They still suck. In the summer sweat gets into the battery compartment and shorts out the battery.
I've gone through three battery's a day when in the winter, one a week would suffice.
Battery's aren't cheap unless the VA provides them.

 

[SPDguns]

I need 'em. Bad. I tried a friend's, he had them turned up so high they squealed from the feedback. I could't even hear the feedback. I'm out.

 

[Perplexed]

The new designs make them invisible.
Some are completely inside the ear canal, never to be seen from the outside, but they lack features to enhance certain types of hearing loss.

There are stages of hearing aids.
The first stage is embarrassment that you need them. You get cheap ones, and never wear them outside of the house. You embarrass yourself saying "huh" all the time.
Second stage is that you wear them outside of the house, and find out they don't work as advertised because you chose the ones that your vanity told you to buy so nobody could see them.
Third stage is that you buy them that actually work. Work meaning they help improve the hearing experience.
When you have hearing loss, there is no hearing aid on the market no matter what the cost that will bring your hearing back to normal levels. You will learn to lip read, you will be embarrassed by speech comprehension issues when you can't understand the person at the fast food drive in, and your peers will laugh when you repeat what you think they said and not what they actually said.
Hearing loss is not a fun issue.
Protect it at all costs.
Take it from one that is living the life.

There are no such "stages" when one has been deaf all one's life and has worn hearing aids from a very young age

 

[Perplexed]

I need 'em. Bad. I tried a friend's, he had them turned up so high they squealed from the feedback. I could't even hear the feedback. I'm out.

Did your friend have custom ear molds for these aids? Feedback will occur if the seal between the mold and the ear canal is not good. Also, if he's got them turned way high, he may need a more powerful aid.

 

[BuckFuller]

My hearing in my right ear is really bad and diminishing in the left ear. About a year ago I started looking at hearing aids and found out how expensive they are. I kept researching and found some pretty good "amplifiers" for around $350 that you could select three different sound range amplifications and you could adjust the volume so I decided to try that before spending big money on an actual tuned aid. After getting it the first thing I realized, just as a friend told me, no hearing aid will be like your natural hearing. It worked okay most of the time but wind noise was my biggest problem. I wore it for a while but I got to noticing that the longer I wore it the less I could hear without it. After a couple of months I quit wearing it and as someone else stated, started saying "Huh?" again. I was certainly glad I just spent $350 rather than $5K - $6k

 

[Decoligny]

Since I have my iPhone with me at all times, I have an app. I can create a hearing profile for any particular environment. The background noise at work is different than at home, or at the movies. It tests each ear in the ambient sound and saves a profile for that place/environment. It uses the standard ear buds with the telephone microphone attached. No social stigma as everyone today had iPhone headsets in their ears. The one thing that may be hard to get used to is a loss of directionality. Can't always tell which direction the sound is coming from, but I can tell what the sound is now.

I am just playing with this for now. I will be scheduling a set of hearing tests with my doctor pretty soon, as I have some tinnitus and my wife seems to have started talking quieter than she use to.

 

[Waltherfan]

From Jimmy Buffett's "He went to Paris" :

He's writing his memoirs and losing his hearing
But he don't care what most people say.

A guy I work with has either the Halo or something like it. He loves it. Said it cost $5 or 6 grand but he said it gave him his life back. He bragged about the features others have mentioned.

 

[ronny]

Since I have my iPhone with me at all times, I have an app. I can create a hearing profile for any particular environment. The background noise at work is different than at home, or at the movies. It tests each ear in the ambient sound and saves a profile for that place/environment. It uses the standard ear buds with the telephone microphone attached. No social stigma as everyone today had iPhone headsets in their ears. The one thing that may be hard to get used to is a loss of directionality. Can't always tell which direction the sound is coming from, but I can tell what the sound is now.

I am just playing with this for now. I will be scheduling a set of hearing tests with my doctor pretty soon, as I have some tinnitus and my wife seems to have started talking quieter than she use to.

What is that app?

 

[Perplexed]

What is that app?

It's called, "Huh?"

 

[Decoligny]

What is that app?

It's called Petralex. Just playing around with it a little bit. It's good for not having to turn the TV up too much. It runs each ear through about 8 different tones where you tap the screen as soon as you can hear the tone. Then it increases the volume of the tones you can't hear that well.