Hearing Aids

[carlover]

Do you know what frequency your tinnitus plays at? Mine is super high pitched ~13 kHz and I always figured that hearing aids wouldn't be helpful for tinnitus if it is above 7 kHz.

Hello AfroSnowman. Mine seems to be around 4 kHz. Not sure if it would work for yourself. Good luck.

 

[Rafalek73]

I have a mild hearing loss on my right and a mild to moderate hearing loss on my left. I have had a left-handed hearing aid for over a year, but without seeing any change in the noise, I left it a few months ago.

About 3 weeks ago I was called to come with it for a regular check. At that time the hearing care professional set it up again, and surprisingly, after putting it on, the noise was much 'lighter'. I immediately thought about buying a second hearing aid - for my right ear. But first I wanted to test it and for a week I tested the second instrument. It was much better; the noise from the right ear was completely suppressed. I gave it back a week ago and still wear the left one every day, but it doesn't make any difference to the noise - with or without it they are the same. Last year, when I bought a hearing aid, I was also satisfied at first, but it passed quickly - it's as if my brain would detect it being cheated.

Therefore, I do not know what to do. Buy a second hearing aid or not.

 

[LindaS]

@Rafalek73

Hello.
Like you, I too have mild hearing loss in my right ear and mild to moderate hearing loss in my left. I just got my first set of hearing aids.

You mentioned you have a hearing aid for the left and when you tested again, the noise in your right ear was completely suppressed. Does this mean you have Tinnitus in both ears?

My audiologist recommended I get two even though the second one was not really needed for hearing loss.
If you check out the website below, or even just an internet search ….there are some compelling reasons to have two aids.

You mentioned you were satisfied at first when you got your hearing aids but it passed quickly.
So having mentioned benefits to having two hearing aids, I just got my hearing aids about a week ago....the jury is still out ……..

https://advancedhearing.com/blog/why-are-two-hearing-aids-better-one

Cheers!

 

[Rafalek73]

@LindaS
Do you feel better wearing hearing aids? Your tinnitus gets better, worse or no change?

 

[LindaS]

@Rafalek73

Hi

Thanks for asking.

Still not sure on the hearing aids. I can still hear my tinnius even with them in. If I turn the hearing volume up to full max, it does make the sound somewhat less noticeable (still there though) but everything else is too loud for me to leave the volume there.
Right now, the aids are not set to my full hearing loss as the audiologist said hearing aids take some getting used to. She likes to take her time in adjusting them so people don't find it too overwhelming all at once.
Not sure if it will make a difference but still hoping

They are "Widex Moment" with the Zen program.
Apparently, if you believe the hype, they are the greatest thing since sliced bread and can do all kinds of wonderful things (except laundry and pour me a drink). (had to throw in some humor so I could use the beer buddies.....)

Okay, back to seriousness... I have found at times, that the chimes sound of the Zen program can somewhat distract me from the tinnitus noise (not for very long though) if my tinnitus is very quiet. Today, I found the sound irritating because my ear was screaming.

I have a ninety day trial on the aids so will have to see what happens. My audiologist said if hearing loss is not corrected, the rest of one's hearing will decline faster. So, if that's true, I may have to resign myself to hearing aids even if they do nothing for the tinnitus.

Do you have tinnitus just in the left ear? Does it fluctuate?


I thought it was getting better. I had a few good days in a row when the frequency noise and the volume went down.
I thought if it could stay like this I could get used to it but then WHAM, blaring tinnitus happens once again.

 

[just1morething]

, blaring tinnitus happens once again.

Of course it does. Happens to me too.

 

[Rafalek73]

@LindaS Thanks for your answer.

I have tinnitus in both ears, but in the left it is much louder.

Yes, my tinnitus is changing and this is the worst. However, when I had two hearing aids, definitely tinnitus was much more acceptable, and sometimes even imperceptible.

That's why I'm going to buy a second hearing aid tomorrow.

 

[bobvann]

I had the same experience as @LindaS. I was using Oticons but had Bluetooth capacity and one of the apps was Widex Zen. After 2 months I stopped using them as recommended by Jastreboff himself.

@Rafalek73 did you notice on "the other forum" there is barely anyone left, one of the Veteran MODS is AWOL and the other has suffered a setback after scolding people for posting when they suffer. How ironic.

 

[LindaS]

Hello @bobvann

I'm curious and wanting to learn as much as I can. I've come across mention of Jastreboff in some posts.

Not sure if I read your comment correctly. Why does he not recommend hearing aids?
Or, is it sound apps to mask or distract that he is against?

Are you still wearing your hearing aids without the sound apps?

 

[bobvann]

Hello @bobvann

I'm curious and wanting to learn as much as I can. I've come across mention of Jastreboff in some posts.

Not sure if I read your comment correctly. Why does he not recommend hearing aids?
Or, is it sound apps to mask or distract that he is against?

Are you still wearing your hearing aids without the sound apps?

I tried hearing aids twice. 1st time was Widex. 1st time I was not able to tolerate them more than a day. The second time was for approx 5 to 6 weeks. Jastreboff and Dr. Nagler have both said hearing aids should not give you adverse reaction.

 

[Rafalek73]

I currently have two hearing aids but they do not reduce my tinnitus. During testing, the difference was immediate, and that's a big one - 60-80% less tinnitus.
I'm already exhausted from all of this. In addition, I am a disabled person. I am 47 years old, but I would like my life to be over.

 

[FGG]

I currently have two hearing aids but they do not reduce my tinnitus. During testing, the difference was immediate, and that's a big one - 60-80% less tinnitus.
I'm already exhausted from all of this. In addition, I am a disabled person. I am 47 years old, but I would like my life to be over.

Hearing aids would help more people with tinnitus if they would read studies like this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804091/

And not just make their aids improve speech detection. Hearing aids over 8 kHz require a lot more processing power but most people would be fine with big bulky aids strapped to their heads if it improved their tinnitus.

 

[LindaS]

Thanks @bobvann and you are so right @FGG

Thanks for the article.

Personally, I would strap something the size of a zeppelin aircraft on to each ear if it would get rid of this damn noise.

Hey @Rafalek73

Sorry the hearing aids are not working the way they did in testing. Were you given any reasons why this may be?

I'm not giving up on the aids just yet. I've asked the audiologist to program in a "white noise" in addition to the Zen sounds. I'm also thinking of trading in the remote access to her (she's only twenty minutes away if I need anything....and I have to drive past the liquor store to see her …..) for Bluetooth so I can find sound apps that may be more helpful for me.
I am s0 trying to keep a sense of humor.....it's so hard.....not sure what else I can do.

 

[Fanny1]

Hearing aids would help more people with tinnitus if they would read studies like this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804091/

And not just make their aids improve speech detection. Hearing aids over 8 kHz require a lot more processing power but most people would be fine with big bulky aids strapped to their heads if it improved their tinnitus.

Where would I go to get or try a industrial strength hearing aid like this?

 

[FGG]

Where would I go to get or try a industrial strength hearing aid like this?

They don't make them. I was reading that hearing aids need to have double the sampling rate per frequency sampled. In other words, the maximum limit is about 10kHz on commercial hearing aids so the sampling rate needs to 20,000 times per second to achieve that. As you go up even higher, you need a lot more processing power.

Researching models that could do this would be a huge upfront financial investment for companies (though the market is certainly there so I would be some companies are starting to look into this) and there is the problem that that with that much processing power, you completely lose portability. A engineer with a lot of resources and a background in this sort of design could probably custom manufacture something like that but it wouldn't be useful for "hearing" because you would have to be at a table (or whatever) to realistically use it. As technology improves and you can get more processing in a smaller unit, hopefully it could be heading in that direction even though tinnitus is not the primary purpose of most hearing aids.

 

[Fanny1]

Oh thank you, and darn... I misunderstood. I was hoping there was something better out there. I wish those COVID-19 helmets caught on... I would not need ear muffs then.

 

[DaveFromChicago]

FGG is entirely correct. My Widex Hearing Aids cannot reach frequencies above 8000 Hz (where my hearing loss begins and consequently the tinnitus). I frequently have reactive tinnitus, and maximum amplification often means an aggravation of the tinnitus sound, as if it is magnified but not covered. Also, maximum amplification results in the equivalent of an artificial hyperacusis that is unendurable when I am near, for example, the sound level of the busy Eisenhower Expressway. When this tinnitus aggravation and artificial hyperacusis are combined, I wonder why I spent $3,150.00 on what constitutes that which could serve as a North Korean interrogation instrument for extracting a confession. The deadly irony is that this is when I have the most difficult, barely controllable suicidal ideation.

This is only meant as an account of my personal experience on how limiting and counterproductive hearing aids can be.

 

[bobvann]

I agree which is why it became pointless to press forward.

 

[DaveFromChicago]

To bobvann:
In retrospect I conscientiously wore these for the sheer placebo value wherein I said that "I am somehow altering or masking this tinnitus sound, so this must eventually result in some sort of improvement, especially when they were recommended by a professional Audiology Group."

The real torture consisted during my last hearing test with those ear- plugged orange stoppers in that soundproof booth. This activated my tinnitus such that I was nearly whimpering with distress afterwards and was unable to remember all of the questions I planned to ask the ENT Doctor (which was pointless anyway, since when I asked when there might be an effective treatment, he blurted out "in about 100 years", and left the Exam Room).

All this for the so-called privilege of receiving a co-pay invoice for $121.00.

 

[Juan]

FGG is entirely correct. My Widex Hearing Aids cannot reach frequencies above 8000 Hz (where my hearing loss begins and consequently the tinnitus). I frequently have reactive tinnitus, and maximum amplification often means an aggravation of the tinnitus sound, as if it is magnified but not covered. Also, maximum amplification results in the equivalent of an artificial hyperacusis that is unendurable when I am near, for example, the sound level of the busy Eisenhower Expressway. When this tinnitus aggravation and artificial hyperacusis are combined, I wonder why I spent $3,150.00 on what constitutes that which could serve as a North Korean interrogation instrument for extracting a confession. The deadly irony is that this is when I have the most difficult, barely controllable suicidal ideation.

This is only meant as an account of my personal experience on how limiting and counterproductive hearing aids can be.

That's the same a relative of mine who uses hearing aids says. Used them for like 2 weeks and later on the hearing aids were just sitting in their case, never used again. And they are expensive!!!

 

[Rafalek73]

Today is a good day again.

 

[bobvann]

Today is a good day again.

Does that just not drive you nuts? Same here. Yesterday was torture...

 

[bobvann]

To bobvann:
In retrospect I conscientiously wore these for the sheer placebo value wherein I said that "I am somehow altering or masking this tinnitus sound, so this must eventually result in some sort of improvement, especially when they were recommended by a professional Audiology Group."

The real torture consisted during my last hearing test with those ear- plugged orange stoppers in that soundproof booth. This activated my tinnitus such that I was nearly whimpering with distress afterwards and was unable to remember all of the questions I planned to ask the ENT Doctor (which was pointless anyway, since when I asked when there might be an effective treatment, he blurted out "in about 100 years", and left the Exam Room).

All this for the so-called privilege of receiving a co-pay invoice for $121.00.

I was charged $300 by one snake oilist and $100 by another.

I remember those orange thingies as well.

 

[LindaS]

@Rafalek73

Glad you are having a good day today!

@DaveFromChicago
@Juan

I wear my hearing aids even though they may not help the tinnitus. Audiologist told me hearing will decline faster if hearing loss is not addressed.

I read somewhere that tinnitus tends to get worse as hearing loss progresses (it didn't state but I am assuming natural age related) so I am also assuming that slowing down hearing loss is a good thing to manage tinnitus?

Let's hope Frequency Therapeutics' FX-322 second trial goes well.

 

[bobvann]

Both audiologists actually had the hearing aid portion turned off and just using them as maskers.

 

[GregCA]

Hearing aids over 8 kHz require a lot more processing power but most people would be fine with big bulky aids strapped to their heads if it improved their tinnitus.

In other words, the maximum limit is about 10kHz on commercial hearing aids so the sampling rate needs to 20,000 times per second to achieve that. As you go up even higher, you need a lot more processing power.

Hi FGG,

I don't think this is the problem. 44.1 kHz x 16 bit support in ADCs and DSPs is really a commodity. Yes, they'll probably draw a bit more power (reducing battery life) and components may be slightly bigger, but I don't think that's the main problem.

Trickier is to have microphones and speakers support this wide range of frequencies in such a small enclosure. As you know, even fancy headphones tend to have poor response rates in the high frequencies. That's one of the reasons why audiologists don't offer extended hearing tests: their own equipment isn't adequate (and it's not their sine generators). To cover such a wide frequency faithfully, you don't have much of a choice but to use multiple speakers (of different sizes), similar to what you'd find on HiFi tower speakers (bigger sizes for bass, smaller sizes - ie "tweeters" - for high frequencies), but you don't have that much real estate in a hearing aid.

So if you were a hearing aid manufacturer and 99.99% of your customers came in with an audiogram that has 6 sampled frequencies between 250 Hz and 8 kHz, you'd probably design a system that addresses that range, because anything beyond it would be wasted resources, since your customers wouldn't even have PTA data to configure them. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

I've personally built such a high quality hearing aid myself (with a microcontroller, DIY-style) and I can tell the quality is much better than my "behind the ear", but my form factor is... hmmm... not the greatest!

 

[FGG]

Hi FGG,

I don't think this is the problem. 44.1 kHz x 16 bit support in ADCs and DSPs is really a commodity. Yes, they'll probably draw a bit more power (reducing battery life) and components may be slightly bigger, but I don't think that's the main problem.

Trickier is to have microphones and speakers support this wide range of frequencies in such a small enclosure. As you know, even fancy headphones tend to have poor response rates in the high frequencies. That's one of the reasons why audiologists don't offer extended hearing tests: their own equipment isn't adequate (and it's not their sine generators). To cover such a wide frequency faithfully, you don't have much of a choice but to use multiple speakers (of different sizes), similar to what you'd find on HiFi tower speakers (bigger sizes for bass, smaller sizes - ie "tweeters" - for high frequencies), but you don't have that much real estate in a hearing aid.

So if you were a hearing aid manufacturer and 99.99% of your customers came in with an audiogram that has 6 sampled frequencies between 250 Hz and 8 kHz, you'd probably design a system that addresses that range, because anything beyond it would be wasted resources, since your customers wouldn't even have PTA data to configure them. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

I've personally built such a high quality hearing aid myself (with a microcontroller, DIY-style) and I can tell the quality is much better than my "behind the ear", but my form factor is... hmmm... not the greatest!

Ah. Makes sense for speakers to be a huge limitation, too.

That's really neat that you made one yourself! There would be a market if you produced them.

 

[just1morething]

Hearing aids seem to help me somewhat when I turn up the volume (I have a remote control) but then they sometimes squeal, especially in my left ear. Maybe I'm using the wrong size dome? I have the lower priced online brand Audicus Clara and Dia.

I have HF hearing loss in both ears that is pretty much symmetrical.

 

[AfroSnowman]

Does anyone know what brands/ models go up to higher frequencies?

 

[Jukka]

Does anyone know what brands/ models go up to higher frequencies?

My audiologist gave me following specs. And now I'm waiting widex.

Oticon OPN S1 100 – 9200 Hz

Sivantos Pure NX 100 – 10000 Hz

ReSound Linx Quatro 100 – 9060 Hz

Phonak Audeo Marvel 100 – 8000 Hz

Widex Evoke 440 FS 100 – 10000 Hz

Starkey Livio 100 – 5700 Hz