I regularly listen to CNBC News at 6 p.m. CST because I think Shepard Smith does a great job with the news, and also he’s a very funny guy. Especially his subtle chuckles when reporting on something that he deems ridiculous.
But there’s a problem. When the news segment morphs into the advertising segment, it is preceded by music, light at first, then louder and louder until the last of the words telling viewers the news are unintelligible as they fade into the advertising segment under the noise of the music. I can’t understand what he’s saying, and sometimes it seems to be important.
This is what happens when you find that you need hearing aids.
You look for the cheapest way to enhance your hearing. You scour ads that makes lots of promises, pick one, and you order through the mail.
When you wise up, you make an appointment with an audiologist who will conduct a thorough evaluation and prescribe hearing aids that will work for you.
You go home in sticker shock!
You decide that you’ll pay the price just to get everyone off your back about having to repeat everything to you, and you go back to the audiologist to order hearing aids.
That’s when the fun begins. This is what I found
when I succumbed to my daughter’s impatience about having to repeat her words over and over and bought my first pair of hearing aids. Hearing aids do improve your hearing, but they’re not even close to what your normal hearing was like.
For openers, the sound can be a bit tinny.
You have to push tiny buttons upon the hearing aid perched behind your ear to adjust the sound level or to move to a different function. Or, if you bought hearing aids that pair with your phone, you can turn on your phone, swipe to find the app, and click some buttons there for the level you want.
For example: On my current pair of hearing aids Function One is the default that comes on when the hearing aids are charged up. It’s fine for most things.
Function Two is what I need for listening to television or movies, because I can hear the upper decibels more clearly. It also supposedly helps when I’m in a crowd to distinguish voices one from another, but to me, a lot of babbling voices sounds more like a dull unified sound off in the distance. My last pair of hearing aids was programmed on Function Two to be “direct,” meaning that if I looked directly toward a person who was speaking, other sounds would blur, allowing me to hear the speaker more clearly. I didn’t bother to do this on my current pair, opting instead to just avoid crowds whenever I could. Not easy when you live in a retirement home.
Function Three remotely connects the t-coil, a tiny copper wire built into my hearing aids (not all have them) to the copper wires built into a “loop” in certain venues such as movie theaters, churches, and other places where crowds of people gather. When the t-coil is present and turned on, incoming signals become sound leaving out background noise such as voices. It’s like having the loop microphone coming directly into your ears, and of course you can adjust the volume yourself.
Function Four is programmed so that I can hear better when using the telephone.
Your audiologist can program any level to do different things. For example, she can program a level for “music” to enhance the sounds for better enjoyment.
You want to take very good care of your ears when you are young (Don’t listen to overly loud music or the continual roar of machinery, etc.), and you might be able to prevent hearing loss when you grow old. I suspect that my own hearing loss was generated by the side effects of a medication that my doctor forgot to stop. I learned of it when a class-action lawsuit was filed against the pharmaceutical company that manufactured it. When I asked my doctor about it, he said, “Oh, are you still on that?” and he stopped it.
There is nothing simple about growing old. How you live your life as a young person makes all the difference in the world.
I haven’t gotten them yet, you’ll notice I say yet because it is probably inevitable, but I watched my mom struggle in isolated frustration with not being able to hear and/or adjust her hearing aids to a comfortable level. She often gave up and sat quietly, not being able to hear or join in the conversation, falling farther and farther away from us and the world. ( or is it further and further? ) thanks for sharing your thoughts and suggestions.