Hearing Aid Diary - Day One - My First Experience

Hopefully, this diary will help others who are new to the HA (hearing aid) experience - and keep my friends and family updated on my progress as well. My blogging friends are welcome to link to it.

Today, at 2:30 p.m., after a nervous 1 transfer bus ride across town (Sacramento) from work (nervous you would understand if you frequented city buses - the schedules of which can be somewhat unpredictable), I was greeted by my now familiar audiologist, and introduced to my first ever pair of HAs - Siemens Centra S BTEs (behind the ear).

My Audi recommended binaural (two aids) because to both of our surprise, my "thought dead" right was actually adding significantly to my speech recognition (SR), and so it's worthwhile to equip both.

To cut to an obvious set of questions, these HAs have the following features:

Fully digital, multi-programmable (I have 3 programs).
T-coil
Multiple microphones (directional and omni)
Automatic situational adjustment (volume and directional feature)
Learning: Will adapt each program to user volume preferences over time
Remote control of program and volume ("ePocket")
Tiny and nearly invisible! Front view in mirror astounded me - never expected that for a BTE!
External input (e.g., FM)
"e2e" wireless technology - volume/program adjustments for L/R can track each other (you can also defeat it)

Yes, Virginia, they ain't cheap. ;)

My audi had them set up beforehand with 3 programs: 1 - Good Days - omnidirectional limited volume, 2 - Noisy Environments - highly directional, 3 - Bad Days - full volume range, omnidirectional.

She spent about an hour with me, teaching, testing and (slight) tweaking - didn't want to tweak too much on the first visit, as there's much adjusting this 49 year old brain needs to do first. She promised we'll tweak more next visit, once I find my performance pattern on different kinds of days.

For my nearly dead ear, we'll eventually settle on a "fixed" program, once we find out what works best. The "variable better" L will stay dynamic, to account for that variability.

Ok, now for the important part - my hearing experience. Based on my first day, I'm guardedly optimistic - I did notice an improvement, but of course, it wasn't the perfect hearing experience everyone hopes for (and probably nobody gets). My SR with the audi definitely improved once I got the program and volume settings right. Too much volume, and my right goes nuts with distortion (as expected from experience with ALDs), but I can trim it to an acceptable point where my SR is quite good (today wasn't a particularly bad hearing day though - we'll see when I have a really bad one).

I was quite happy, though, when walking home from my bus stop, with my program set to 2 (noise reduction, directional), and the volume in the middle; neighbors doing the "howdy do" came through with almost perfect SR - and one of them was 20 feet away! If you knew what my normal experience is, you'd be as amazed as I was.

There's always gotta be one glitch, and this one is partly my fault (haven't gotten to the doctor yet) - I've got an annoying recurring fungal infection in my right, that I have to get taken care of before I can continue wearing the R HA. Audi insisted I clean the earmold with a magic pad she gave me on removal, and don't put it back in until the doc blows his magic powder in my ear and knocks the fungus out.

Well at least now I'm motivated to demand a fast appointment. :)

That's Day One!

Paul S (AKA: LifeWrecked) - Out.