Help for Hearing Impairment

Hear-Hear

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

If any of you are in the Bristol area, I've been invited to a HearHere day organised by Imperial Hearing on Monday 17th September, 10 am - 3 pm, Westbury on Trym Methodist Church. The link is to an earlier day but that gives you an idea.

I'm keen to go because they say you'll be able to see inside your own ears, and I've been told I've got a cyst in one, I'd quite like to see how big and where ...

Sue,

Be fully aware that the purpose is to find out if you have hearing loss, and hopefully encourage you to purchase hearing aids. I'm personally not in favour of 'exhibitions' or 'home visit' type firms, but if you are going solely with the purpose of having a look inside your own ears, then you'll probably find it quite interesting. They will use equipment called a video otoscope. Most full-time high street audiologists, Boots, Specsavers, and Independent, will have the same kit available if you prefer to be seen in a proper consulting room environment, rather than a church hall :shocked:.

Savvy_Sue

Hear-Hear wrote: »

Sue,

Be fully aware that the purpose is to find out if you have hearing loss, and hopefully encourage you to purchase hearing aids. I'm personally not in favour of 'exhibitions' or 'home visit' type firms, but if you are going solely with the purpose of having a look inside your own ears, then you'll probably find it quite interesting. They will use equipment called a video otoscope. Most full-time high street audiologists, Boots, Specsavers, and Independent, will have the same kit available if you prefer to be seen in a proper consulting room environment, rather than a church hall :shocked:.

Oh I'm fully aware that despite what they say about it not being a sales event that's precisely what they want to do! :rotfl:

thanks for the heads up about getting a chance to see inside my own ears. that date's not a great one for taking time off work, so I might make an appointment with a private audiologist and say beforehand that I'm keen to look inside my ears. GP says all he can do is refer me to ENT and they'll see if they can cut it out, whereas audiology technician thought GP might be able to prescribe a cream.

Guardsman

suzyjane wrote: »

Please don't laugh but I lost one of my hearing aids in a self service till in Tesco........long story lol.:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
I just wondered if anyone knows if the NHS will replace the hearing aid for free. I usually wear 2 and am really struggling to manage with one. I only had both of them for a month and I'm too embarrassed to contact audiology and explain what happened.
Any advice very much appreciated

I have all day and this story will be worth listening to

I would have thought that your local NHS department would put this down to accidental loss especially if you had a accompanying letter from Tesco.
Could they not open the till up and have a look for it ?

thelawnet

My grandma is 100 and suffers with severe hearing loss. She had a hearing aid a few years ago but never get on with it.

Just wondering about costs/help to get a good hearing aid so she can hear things without having to be shouted at?

Savvy_Sue

thelawnet wrote: »

My grandma is 100 and suffers with severe hearing loss. She had a hearing aid a few years ago but never get on with it.

Just wondering about costs/help to get a good hearing aid so she can hear things without having to be shouted at?

Was this via the NHS? It would possibly be worth going that way again, but I'd say you need to establish in what sense she 'never got on with it'.

If she didn't get on with everything being too loud, then it may not be much different this time, but return visits to audiology for adjustment might help.

If she didn't find it comfortable, that could possibly be addressed by return visits to audiology for adjustment.

If it was just too fiddly for her to insert it, that's a problem, but it may be possible to overcome it with patience. If it was too fiddly switch it on and off and adjust it, then these things can be addressed with remote controls. But it's still going to need patience.

Even if she goes private this time, I'd say return visits for adjustment were going to be very necessary.

What might help is lipreading classes ... and learning the fingerspelling alphabet. This is not just for grandma, but also for members of the family to learn how to improve their communication skills. If you can see which letter a word start with, it can be much easier to work out which word it is from the context. Pen and paper helps too ...

Is she otherwise in good health?

mum26

Hi all, I didn't realise this thread was here!

I'm 35 and have recently got two Oticon hearing aids (have no idea of model).

After about 2 months they are starting to feel more natural and my ears don't feel like they've been stamped on so much (they were incredibly painful for the first few weeks) and i've started to forget they are there at times which is great!

I have noticed people saying about follow on appointments after fitting ones? I've not been offered that, should I have been?

I did instigate a second appointment because of the pain and also because I wanted the loop programme on them but otherwise they seemed happy to never see me again.

Also I have heard that you can get different programmes put on them but nothing was said about what those are.

I felt like a bit of an imposition upon the audiologist who I saw (the one who took the moulds etc was really lovely, the one who did the fitting was more senior but I got the feeling he mostly deals with the elderly, I was given no choice in colour etc even though the first audiologist had said about the range of colours etc) and he was actually a bit snotty with me when I went back. I was glad I had taken my dp with me tbh and I didn't feel like he really took me seriously or actually listened to me, instead he would go on another rambling story about old ladies!

Not really relevant to me at 35 with a busy household of six children, schools to deal with etc etc and two boys with asperger's.

The first audiologist had given me my faith back a bit in the department (i've had hearing loss since birth, probably due to prematurity or medication given in SCBU, went through the usual one beige useless thing is all you can have - imagine if you only got one lens in a pair of glasses! - was exactly the same when I went back 10 years ago, finally gave in and got referred back again as was really not coping after struggling with baby monitors, parents evening etc for all those years.

Sorry, what a rant!

brook2jack

My daughter has oticon zests and I believe you can have up to four programmes. She has normal, t loop, a music listening programme and an off programme. (She is a musician). I believe you can have a volume control programmed in and there are three levels of hearing adjustment low,medium and high and for new users they normally start on low to medium and as you get used to the aids you can ramp up the correction.

She had one follow up appointment at which feedback problems were sorted out and has the e mail address for any concerns. They are happy to see her if she feels she needs further adjustments.

As the audiologist doesn't normally do so many programmes etc (mostly elderly clientele ) they weren't aware of all the programming options but asking questions here had made us forearmed and the audiologist was happy to seek advice to get the programme my daughter wanted ( normally the hearing aid picks up preferentially what it thinks is speech so often the high end frequencies are filtered out. The music programme amplifies all frequencies equally).

My daughter goes back in a year for annual hearing test etc and I believe new hearing aids are usually dispensed around every three years.

As my daughter is about to go to uni she is being assesed for what other needs she may have and the audiology department is happy to dispense the communicate version of the zests which can be paired with a streamer box (which the nhs wont pay for) that feeds mobile phones, music players etc direct into the aids .

Guardsman

Deaf gerbils 'hear again'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19570024

Guardsman

When I finish work it's nice to get the shoes off and it's also just as nice to take the hearing aids out.

Hear-Hear

Not a bad idea to remove hearing once or twice a day, even for just 15 minutes or so. Good to take a rest from all the activity, but also to allow some fresh air to ventilate the ear canals.