HA for unilateral hearing loss?
Ronald Florence
to Meniere's Disease. (My Meniere's hit with temporary hearing loss,
vertigo, and tinnitus 12 years ago, went into a long remission with
occasional periods of moderate hearing loss, and now seems to have
come back with a substantial hearing loss, though fortunately no
vertigo.)
The hearing in the affected (right) ear is now bad enough that if I am
driving a car I cannot hear conversation from the person in the
passenger seat, or if I'm walking down the street with someone I need
them to walk on my left (good-ear) side. The hearing in my left ear
is "normal" for a 60-year old man.
If my hearing stabilizes at this level, which I suspect it will do, I
am considering a hearing aid for the right ear. I'd welcome reports
from people with hearing aids and unilateral hearing loss: the
anecdotal reports I've heard cover the full spectrum (pun
unintentional) from "worthless" or "distracting" to "wonderful."
Thanks,
--
Ronald Florence www.18james.com
cwhite0714
My left ear's hearing disintegrated before my right. I wore a hearing
aid in that one for about 10 years before adding the second aid. It
wasn't perfect, but neither are two. I still have trouble
understanding some speech.
Llama Larry
> If my hearing stabilizes at this level, which I suspect it will do, I
> am considering a hearing aid for the right ear. I'd welcome reports
> from people with hearing aids and unilateral hearing loss: the
> anecdotal reports I've heard cover the full spectrum (pun
> unintentional) from "worthless" or "distracting" to "wonderful."
I have had a Senso Widex Diva ITC in my left ear now for about a month.
Prior to that I had moderate to severe hearing loss on that one side, sadly
right at the frequencies for speech :(
After getting the unit installed and tweaked 3 times by my audiologist I can
definitely say that I am very pleased and look forward to my one last
planned tweak in a week or so. My family has already noticed that the TV is
as a more normal volume and don't miss the captions on the TV either. ;-)
You will hear the same spread of results regarding any HA application, not
just unilaterals. I think that there is a lot of dissatisfied folks that
get the HA and give up before seeking the help of a more competent
audiologist.
Something that came up with my audie yesterday is that since I have one
great ear I am not such a big fan of the normal mic program that rolls off
the frequencies outside the speech ranges. I prefer the Music program which
is more full spectrum and allows more high and low end frequencies. This
feels/sounds much more balanced that the speech biased setting and would
probably be better for you since you hear all the noise anyway out of your
good ear. ;-)
If someone tells you that their HA is worthless or distracting then they
just did not get a good fit or a good adjustment for them or perhaps their
adjustment curve was too steep to get used to hearing NORMAL sounds again.
My first adjustment made everything seem so loud the first couple of days
that I thought about bringing it back. I stuck it out and have had the gain
increased two times which would have thought inconceivable after my first
day!
I am sure that you will get a lot of responses on this topic, but good luck
to you, happy reading and be prepared to learn a whole lot about your new HA
and the many ways it can be adjusted to suit your specific needs.
--Larry
terr...@knowspam.mam
wrote:
I hear fine with one hearing aid. The other ear can't be aided so
that is a situation that is different from yours with a different set
of challenges, but it seems to me if you only "need" one aid it makes
no sense to get two. It will certainly be better than the unbalanced
situation you have now.
Terri
jay
> great ear I am not such a big fan of the normal mic program that rolls off
> the frequencies outside the speech ranges. I prefer the Music program which
> is more full spectrum and allows more high and low end frequencies. This
> feels/sounds much more balanced that the speech biased setting and would
> probably be better for you since you hear all the noise anyway out of your
> good ear. ;-)
>
>
>
> --Larry
I was wondering about this aspect. My loss is bi-lateral, and I
adjusted reasonably well to the normal setting, to the point now where
my hearing with the aids in or out seems the same, with just less
amplification with them out, of course. It took quite a while to get
to that point. I've been wearing Widex Senso Diva ITC's since April
19, 2002 for a moderate high frequency loss.
I'd imagined that someone with a unilateral loss would have a bit more
trouble adjusting, since the brain is now processing one sound "type"
on one side and a different one on the other. I only use the Music
setting while at home listening to Music, because in every other
environment I can't deal with the noise it "lets in."
--Jay
ken kerrison
incredibly adaptable to hearing assistance. There is, initially, a
quite steep learning curve which soon levels off but never becomes
flat. The brain reaches out for all the information it can get. For me
(bilateral loss) the increased comprehension from two, as against one,
aid is very evident. I would expect that aiding the weak ear would
make a similar difference and your brain would soon adapt to taking
full advantage of the extra information. The brain circuitry related
to the weak ear, probably dormant from lack of exercise, would soon be
restored. If you work at it, that is.
Ronald Florence
using an HA for a unilateral hearing loss. Many of the replies were
useful, although none directly addressed what may be the unusual
problem of "normal" hearing in one ear and a substantial loss in the
other.
I've now had another audiogram, and as I suspected, the acuity of the
bad (right) ear has further deteriorated: it is now solidly in the
severe loss range, with speech recognition down to 20%. Because the
left ear is "normal" at all frequencies, with close to 100% speech
recognition, both the otologist and the audiologist felt that I would
not profit from even a sophisticated digital HA in the weak ear. For
now, I'm taking a short course of prednisone in the hope of shocking
the ear back or at least slowing any further loss of hearing. Then
we'll reconsider options.
Because I'm a novelist and historian, and mostly work alone, the
situations in which the unilateral hearing loss is troublesome are
relatively limited. I'm learning to explain to people that I need
them to walk on the other side of me on noisy streets, and various
techniques for noisy restaurants, parties, seminars where too many
people talk at the same time, and similar situations where the lack of
directional sense and ability to discriminate speech from background
noise are a handicap.
--
Ronald Florence www.18james.com