I have a couple questions for my great readers:
Which hearing aids do you wear? Are you happy with them? – How do they help change your life for the better? What don’t you like about them?
Did you pay for them out of pocket? Were you able to get financial assistance from Insurance or other sources? Is the current recession affecting your choice to buy a hearing aid?
If you want to let me know anonymously, email me at davidsigismund@gmail.com. All information shared with me is confidential and private. Otherwise, just post here. Thank you for reading this blog. Your opinions matter to me.
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9. April 2008 at 11:49 am
I’ll start first..
I wear a pair of ReSound Canta 7’s for a “moderately severe” hearing loss in both ears.
These hearing aids are a step above my last (Resound 5000) and they do a better job of eliminating the noise I don’t want to hear and the directional microphones really pick out speech well if I’m facing a speaker in a loud room. They make a huge quality of life improvement for me because they help me communicate with people. When I’m hiking alone in the mountains I often take them out and practice awareness without them but I also like to hear the rustling in the bushes and distance streams.
I’d like the dynamic range to go farther into the high frequencies. I’d like to see hearing aid manufacturers stop making advertisements and marketing claims that aren’t backed up by clinical research. I want to see more manufacturers improving on advanced analog designs (that are digitally programmable)…among other things.
Cost: $6,000 dollars for the pair. My PPO plan from Blue Shield paid nothing toward my hearing test or my hearing aids. Whats the point of calling it “health insurance”?
So far I am not qualifying for assistance from Vocational Rehabilitation (for a couple of different reasons) or other sources.
David
9. April 2008 at 12:24 pm
I wear a pair of Widex Inteos. I just got them a few months ago. They were my first new aids in ten years. So far they are pretty great. I like that there are several settings, but I am still figuring out which one works in each part of my life.
I think they cost about $6k but thankfully I qualified for Vocational Rehab support so I only had to pay 1% of the cost myself (about 60 dollars.)
13. April 2008 at 10:40 am
Another great post from you. The “dynamic range” to which you refer, is really the enhancement of critical high frequency speech information you are missing probably due to cochlear dead zones. Dynamic range is the range from your threshold of audibility and the point where that sound becomes uncomfortable. Which is why advanced signal processing and compression available in today’s hearing aids helps you.
15. April 2008 at 1:31 pm
Kelly,
The settings can be a little bit confusing to work with at first. The vast majority of the time I find myself on the default setting..then I often use my second setting in noisy situations where I’m trying to listen to people in a loud conference room, bar, or concert. That one works nicely and without it I probably wouldn’t catch a single thing people said.
I then I have two more settings for music and telecoil. The music setting is nice ..but I usually listen to music in the car and I keep it on default for that because the music setting doesn’t deal with the car noise very well.
19. April 2008 at 9:51 am
I currently wear Oticon Digifocus Superpower II and the next most likely candidate will be Phonak Naida. They were paid fully out of my pocket. What is this Vocational Rehab support that you speak of? Is there any insurance or supplemental insurance that covers hearing aids?
19. April 2008 at 10:43 am
Hi Ganesh,
The Vocational Rehab is a bureaucratic arm intended to help people with disabilities find employment and education. It confuses me a bit how free hearing aids ends up being thrown into the mix- but it makes sense when I think about hearing aids as a very valuable aid for any job.
I, for example, don’t want employment help. But my understand is – I can still be helped by the VR. But you can still contact your local (state level) VR department and get a hold of the specific person in charge of hearing impairments. That person can often give you free hearing aids. I’m not completely sure about the hoops you have to jump..i’m assuming you don’t need to be hooked up with a job by them..you can just get free hearing aids as part of your “employment assistance”.
As awesome as the VR seems to be for some people – I have been told by the people at VR that it is a VERY limited (albeit untapped) resource. If we ALL went and got them free they would run out of the ability to do so really quickly. I also think that people who aren’t working – the old and young should be covered by better resources. They aren’t.
Here is the info for your New York City VR:
New York Vocational Rehabilitation
New York Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities
One Commerce Plaza, Room 1603
Albany, NY 12234
Toll Free: (800)222-5627
vesidadm@mail.nysed.gov
http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/
Thanks to Cindy at Beethoven’s Ears Blog for the original information. http://beethovensears.com/free-hearing-aids/
19. April 2008 at 1:21 pm
Hi David,
This is a great site and I finally have linked to your blog from HearingMojo.
When I had mild hearing loss I wore Widex Senso CIC (completely in the canal). I went through several pairs at nearly $5k a pair. They worked well but I found them uncomfortable and feedback was a problem.
When I got sudden severe hearing loss in both ears I went to Widex Diva BTEs (beind the ear). They always worked well but feedback was a problem in the left ear which needs a lot of amplification. The Wides BTEs were about $4,500 a pair. I never graduated to the Inteo which I heard has better sound processing because I recently moved to America Hears.
Two months ago I discovered America Hears (www.americahears.com) which sells digital hearing aids direct over the internet. I got a pair of ITEs (in the ear) and they’ve been awesome. I made my own earmolds from a kit they sent me, faxed them my audiogram, and they sent me a fully programmed pair that have worked unbelievably well. They also send a kit with a programmer so you can adjust the programming yourself, or you can talk to their audiologists and they will download program adjustments they do for you over the internet and through the programmer that plugs your hearing aids into your PC. It’s pretty amazing, though you have to be comfortable doing a lot of the work yourself. They only charge $995 for each hearing aid (fixed pricing for all their hearing aids- they also have nice open-fit hearing aids as well as BTEs). They use 32-channel digital signal processors with very good software from Dynamic Hearing, and good components including fully directional microphones. They are better with speech in noise than the Widex aids were and I’m loud sounds don’t bother me as much. So they really got it right for me.
RE Vocational Rehabilitation – I had never heard of that before and will look into it. I couldn’t work at my day job without hearing aids and a lot of other assistive technology.
19. April 2008 at 7:31 pm
I wrote a comment about VR on Hearing Mojo back in October 2006:
http://p6.hostingprod.com/@hearingmojo.com/blog-mt/blog-mt/2006/02/how_to_buy_a_hearing_aid_if_yo.html#comments
Cindy
23. July 2008 at 3:07 pm
I am currently in a trial period with Lyric. It has been 2.5 weeks so far. I felt a vacuum sensation when these were being put in…perhaps too close to the eardrum. When they were backed out a bit, it was better. One forgets how often their ear canal moves…eating, talking, moving one’s head from side to side, etc. The first 2-3 days I was really aware of their presence..now, not so much. I didn’t feel pain and didn’t need any pain relievers to deal with the presenting sensations. I had digital Phonak aids prior to this trial and they just weren’t working for me anymore. I still struggle a bit with TV and some voices (if they are soft) but my overall ability to hear has improved. I don’t have to ask “huh” nearly as much. Things I havn’t been able to hear for a few years, I now can. I think I am going to go with Lyric…my sensation of life’s sounds is mucher richer with them…I had forgotten about many sounds that I havn’t been able to pick up for awhile (my loss is slow progressive).
10. September 2008 at 4:08 pm
Well, I have to reverse my comments in the post dated July 23, 2008. I went in on week four to have the Lyric taken out and new ones put in because I thought the battery was dying. Plus, I was hearing a popping noise in both ears. Turns out that the revolutionary material they claim will not saturate does in fact saturate if you have real moist ear canals to begin with. The material on both Lyrics were completely satured and both middle ears were filled with fluid. Thankfully, I didn’t get an infection, but having the liquid suctioned out was no fun. It is too bad that the material does in fact saturate and cause problems for people like me. I did enjoy the freedom and clarity of new sounds. I am now trying out an FM system in conjunction with my Phonak Savia’s…so far I have been impressed, just don’t like having to carry around the remote and make it obvious I have hearing loss…
7. January 2009 at 5:08 pm
Just want to say thanks to everyone for the helpful advice. This blog is great. I currently have a pair of Widex Diva ITE and a spare Diva BTE for emergencies. One of the ITEs has permanently conked out so it is time for a new set. I am amazed at how much more info there is online from even 5 years ago.
6. May 2009 at 2:50 pm
VR is great for helping people pay for their hearing aids. but I have notice that when the audiologist choose a specific brand of hearing aid for me they choose the one with the lowest price(I assume that that’s what VR will only pay for). That isn’t so good as I was given a hearing aid that I hated so much. I sound was just distorted and making me frustrated when I couldn’t hear clear or clearly understand speech. Now VR is going to pay for another hearing aid for me and of course the audiologist picked out the one with the lowest price and told me that it’s a really great hearing aid. I hope she is right. I will have to see when I get it. If I don’t like it. I might just have to pay out of my pocket for the next one.
6. May 2009 at 4:19 pm
Sharlene,
thanks for pitching in with your experience with VR. Yeah, it certainly makes sense to me that VR would steer you towards the cheapest options (which may or may not work well depending on what kind of hearing loss you have). Do you know what brand of hearing aid you tried before or the one that your will try next? Do you know what kind of hearing loss you have (ie, how severe? mine for example is labeled a “moderately-severe high frequency loss”).
For a lot of people the cheapest options seem to work fine- but I know thats not the case for myself and it may turn out the same for you. Hopefully your new ones that VR is paying for will work. Let me know..
20. July 2009 at 9:44 am
I wear Oticon Epoqs which I got because they cover up to 10kHz. I am an ASL/English interpreter and I need FULL coverage! They cost about $6000 for both, which I paid entirely out of pocket. Unfortunately I am a full-time student and only work part-time, so it was a major financial hardship, but they have really changed my life…made it possible for me to keep doing my job.
Because I am late-deafened, I had to apply for VR when I got these hearing aids. I was turned down because Virginia had cut the budget. So even though I really needed them to do my job – quite literally – I couldn’t get VR.
2. January 2010 at 1:04 am
I saw your post on another web site concerned with medical devices and found that there was a lot of misinformation about Lyric. I tried to register and post there but got frustrated and so I’m posting here. I first wore Siemens, the one in the left ear (my “good” ear) was in the canal and a larger one in my right ear. Total cost would have been 5700
dollars,but I returned the smaller one before the 45 day trial period because I found the pressure in the ear too uncomfortable. After a few years, I was fitted with Wydex Inteo behind the ear. These listed for $6200 but I paid $4500. I had them for about 9 months when I saw an ad for a free 45 day trial of the Lyric hearing aid. I had read about this hearing aid about over a year ago, but there were limited offices on the east coast. I signed up for the trial period and I was sold on these the day that I was fitted. I’ve been wearing them for four months
I had the first set replaced after 6 weeks because after a cross country air flight my hearing didn’t seem right. I had the second set removed before I was visiting my grand children for an extended period of time in Hawaii and although I had no problems with this set after two months, we felt it would be best to play it safe while I am away. My lyric hearing aids cost $3200 for the year with unlimited visits. I think that they are costly, but are so much more effective than my previous hearing aids. There are no extra costs such as replacements for loss (in both previous purchases, my hearing aids were lost within the warranty period but I had to pay $850 and $350 for replacement)I am retired with a fixed income and have no connection with Lyric except for being a satisfied user.