a more silent world

I have always had ITE type hearing aids up until I got my Cobalts last year around this time. A couple weeks ago I really got to enjoy perhaps the biggest benefit of BTE aids. My left aid was on the blink, so I sent it back to be repaired. Since my left ear has much higher speech discrimination, I was able to simply put my left receiver on my right aid and wear it like that for a week. Turns out the receiver was also having a problem. Within one day, I had new receivers on my doorstep courtesy of my very nice audiologist, and the difference was unbelievable--like having brand new hearing aids. For any of you wondering about going BTE, it is 100% better in my opinion. One thing I actually miss about my ITE type aids is their visibility. I find it very helpful for people to see my aids, and thus be able to make an educated guess as to why I am asking them to repeat themselves. My BTE's are nearly invisible, but I suppose some people would like that.

My last set of hearing aids were from Phonak. I will say that when they worked, they worked great. The problem is, I had one that frequently didn't work, and like all things that fail intermittently, it was nearly impossible to figure out why it wasn't working correctly. After a few times sending it back for 1-2 weeks at a time, I got pissed off and told my Audiologist to simply have them replace it, or deal with my wrath. Fast forward to today. My new Rexton aids work wonderfully and I am happy. Except... My son has Phonaks (Sigh). We got his first pair when he was around 3 months old, and they were new loaners from CHOP--Phonak Una models. Very big, and very sturdy. He finally got his state-insurance-funded aids a few months ago and they are technically better than the Una, but far smaller and seemingly designed more for an adult. The aids themselves are tiny (making them impossible to find every 10 minutes when he chucks them somewhere) and the earhooks are held on o...

I saw this movie yesterday at the Keswick in Philadelphia and was very impressed. I went to the 1pm show and there was a pretty good turnout, although I'm sure lots more went to the 7pm show. The movie had a good plot, nice directing, and a few good laughs. It was great to see such a varied audience, too. Lots of Deaf, HoH, and Hearing all enjoying the film. It was great to be around so many signers. The writer/director and main actors were all there, also. Definitely buy the DVD when it comes out in September!

I went in today for a followup tuning of my new hearing aids. My main issues that I needed addressed: 1) There was heavy distortion on the main programs in loud environments, making speech very difficult to interpret 2) Certain types of loud sounds were overwhelming me in my normal programs 3) We forgot to add the programs for Bluetooth phone and Direct audio connections during the first fitting We took out most of the compression in the main program, removing all traces of distortion, but that still left the overwhelming sounds. We walked through various frequencies over the speakers and found that I had a huge peak at about 1000Hz, right in the middle of the speech range, so we knocked the gain down at that frequency and everything was PERFECT. My main program is really great now. Took a couple times to get the Bluetooth and Direct audio programs to sound right, and I think I will still need one more visit to get these a little better, but overall they sound pretty good. Hooked m...

So I've worn my new hearing aids a few full days now. They are nice, but they definitely need a re-tuning badly. I am going back in a week from today. Biggest complaints so far: -Music sounds like total crap while I'm driving. Maybe it's all the compression, but it just sounds like it runs through a tiny AM radio first and then through my speakers. The "Music" program makes things sound better, but road noise is unbearable. I didn't really have this problem with my old ears, but then my gain wasn't as high. -Voices also tend to sound really distorted in loud environments--again I think this is the huge amount of compression we put on. I want clear sound in all environments, but I want my aids to supress sounds that are too loud. -The remote is very nice, if not a tad heavy. Funny, people wants phones heavy like the iphone because that makes them feel "substantial". This remote definitely doesn't fall into that category--I want it LIGHT...

I ordered my new Rexton hearing aids in silver and also ordered a an optional kit to convert them to blue. I wanted half and half, so I exchanged a couple of the silver parts out with blue parts. Here is what they look like now (dime shows just how tiny these things are):

I picked up my new hearing aids today and thought I would post my initial thoughts. First, let's take a little journey back in time to understand some of my history. I got my first set of ears 10 years ago. They were the Senso+ model in the CIC (completely-in-the-canal) size, made by Widex. They were almost invisible and functioned fairly well, but after four years they were no longer powerful enough to keep up with my progressive loss, so I got a new set. The new set were Phonak Claro ITE (in-the-ear) models, and were far more technologically advanced, and also far larger and more noticeable. I was able to control the volume and choose programs using my Phonak wristwatch. I have worn these for about five years now, but again my hearing loss has outgrown the volume possible with these models. Fast forward to present day. I recently bought a pair of Rexton Cobalt 16 (same as Siemens Pure 700) and a bluetooth remote control that Rexton calls an RCU (same as the Siemens Tek). The...