DESPERATELY NEED HEARING AID ADVICE/RECOMMENDATIONS

@Krikkit, my mom was a professional hearing aid fitter for decades.

First advice: GO TO AN INDEPENDENT AUDIOLOGIST!! Avoid Miracle Ear at all costs. They are cheap, and you definitely get what you pay for.

Then, look into either Starkey or Beltone. They both have excellent digital models, which is what you MAY (allow me to emphasize *MAY*) need. IF a hearing aid can correct the issue, a digital will also help with noise cancellation, and can be reprogrammed if the loss continues to degrade (will require retesting with an audiologist based on recommendations)

Yes, digital hearing aids are pricey. But this is your HEARING we are talking about! No offense to @x1Heavy, but typical humans process a LOT of information through their ears. Much of our "danger sense" and situational awareness comes from our ears. This is definitely NOT a sense to cheap out on.

Truck drivers in particular (again, apologies to @x1Heavy) rely on our ears more than we often realize. A sound can indicate a problem well before other senses if we pay attention. Our ears work to keep us safe in many situations.

Low tone loss is actually very common in trucking. We deal with almost constant noise, from our engine to traffic to factory noise to other trucks idling. Add in the radio or phone or whatever else is going on, and we undergo an almost constant assault on our hearing. If your BF wants to preserve what hearing he has left, he needs to be tested by an audiologist like yesterday!

 

No offense taken.

Beltone may be out of business according to Maryland Hearing Aid Service with whom Ive been with since the mid 70's

The Body has many ways to compenstate for losses in various senses.

Emphasis on getting that hearing loss person to a audiologist like really immediately, you have no idea how much is lost when a human ear is not "Working" at it's best. The related cells, structure etc literally wastes away until that person is truly deaf and cannot be helped.

Brsims speaks plain and is correct on these things.

I have high pitched loss above 3800 so the lower you go the easier to hear on my part. Always has been.

 

good post. I have bad hearing also, but if they say I cant drive, ill just go over to the social security office and file for retirement.

 

I have weird uneven hearing loss, but I get by. I tried a local yard spotting gig for just over a year mostly looking for better home time. I didn't even wear the hearing aids while bouncing around in the noisy Yard Truck.

I'm thinking of hitting the road again and I think my hearing is adequate for now, but I wonder how this will go in the future.

Also, I'm not quite sure how my my issues are from basic hearing loss. I saw an audiologist who thinks right side hearing loss is from Ramsay Hunt Syndrome / Bell's Palsy and pinched nerves. My hearing in my ear might be fine, but the nerves that should carry that audio info are not.

Kind of wondering if I should get a decent gig and run steady to boost my bank account and get another line of work before this could get worse.

 

A palsy of a given nerve, whatever it may be if like a frayed airline, it will work for you a while leaking a little bit. Eventually you get shaky as it (Nerve) leaks alot and finally you find that you need to rest. In your case it would be a retreat to a quiet place temporarily. Take the load off your body nerve systems that are affected and it will take a opportunity to make what I call rapid repairs and you feel better before too long. Not 100% but for the rest of the day you should be fine.

I have several specific palsys that were not diagnosed until I ran into the correct doctor, one of which had no computer nothing just books dating to the 50's He was also a Intellectual Giant. He was nice to me but frankly I could not run with the likes of him but it's not a problem. Im pretty sharp sometimes but I was just a Brutus with this doc. His information helped me along the way.

The basic foundation of my hearing loss is bilatheral failure of the nerves to keep up growing once my body weight took off in the incubator at month three from 1.2 pounds to 2.4 in month 4. By month 5 I was at 4.3 and sent home. (Three month premature birth at a weight low enough to consider throwing the fetus into the incinerator after a lethal kill is administered) Then 5 months in the incubator, whose systems were not insulated during the 60's the constant roar of the old 60 hertz 120 volt cartridge protected fused motors raised hell with me. A HUGE Z generator.

To this day I get near a certain motor Im done for the day. HA...

Body took off in gaining weight that first year. Nerves only grow at a fixed rate.

Now here is the kicker.

I was a idiot at 2. Kids were running circles around me. I had developed a form of pointing as a language to my pesky parents and my poor siblings. The siblings did really well. But he Society and parents did not. They committed me to a mental facility which is in hartford county in belair that was a holding facility of all 10 year old and younger. Essentially a warehouse. You sit in a group fo 20 in a class room 15 minutes then herded to the next classroom one floor down. Three floors 6 class changes per hour. Takes any aggression or excess energy right out of the people.

I finally told that teacher at 4 I am not one of these people. They were dumbstruck. How dare I speak. Who am I to speak. etc.

Sent me to another doctor determined to commit me to a mental insitution under very strong soul destroying medicine. This doctor saw me playing toys. Called my name and YES?

From that day forward Education was possible, as was signlanguage and by 6 everything took off from there. I surpassed my classmates by 10.

One thing. That will never change.

If you can put a 18 wheeler here. I will do it twice as better than you did. Just to be accepted that yes I can control a 18 wheeler. Society does not accept me as a trucker. Society does not get to tell me what to do with my life and time, they can enjoy the foods that I delivered to the city today for dinner. And at least give thanks.

I have to do everything twice as good just to exist.

This was a little bit of a group of thoughts, related to certain very foundational issues of hearing loss.

now...

For a older person say 60. Lost hearing one morning due to a bacterial infection overnight. BOOM. No more music. No more wife talking and so many other things. Stick a hearing aid on him.

PRIDE. You will walk to the end of the earth bowed down under your own pride, stubborness not to be caught dead wearing a horrible hearing aid in front of everyone.

We do the same thing with glasses. Such a complex. Such BS. It is the human specifically that has the problem. Not you, me or them. Unfortunately more hearing stands to be lost possibly for good due to postponing. That's SERIOUSLY a WASTE and it's unnecessary.

Get going. The sooner you fix the hearing, the better life will be. Trust me. Oh second thought don't. Get going. The Audiologist will know.

 

He may have one of two issues that an Audiologist won't be able to detect, he would have to go to an Otolaryngologist. one is Superior semicircular canal dehiscence syndrome (SCDS) and the other is Meniere’s disease. Both hearing aids do not help but cause the problems as you describe them as.

 

I don't think that's how it works. Take the aids to the audiologist .and maybe they can tell you if they are good for you.They check your hearing without aids and then decide what will work.
Hearing loss is an occupational hazard of trucking.
You don't just pop in aids and expect them to work properly as there are many options even in the little tubes and the ear ends
1HEAVY any thoughts?

 

No don't try to pass on a walmart set of aids. They are literally not considered formal hearing aids. Actually the DOT considers those quackery. It works for me and it's used sparingly because the earbuds are a problem and the boost is insufficient. Those things broadcast in a strict range of 3000 hertz to 100 and that's it. Very poorly. There is a a thousand reasons why they are just 20 dollars.

I would not take on the DOT test with those crappy aids either.

Look in your phone book or google audiologists in your area and DRIVE, WALK IN. Hello we have some questions you have a few minutes? Most of the time they are quiet enough in business to be more than happy to see you two.

Miracle ear is a result of huge big time money spammy national ads that splash all over as our Society gets older and deafer. I respect them but I would not personally use any of their products. Why? Because the Audiologist knows exactly what kind of big time power and a range of computer support to make me hear very well. With a set of fitted premiums such as Beltone that are very expensive I can hear better than my spouse when she gets into the cookie jar with that glass lid across the house at 3 am. I believe beltone went out of business after 30 years.

Either way if I bought hearing aids the audiologist will issue a pair and quote a price for them.

Make sure whatever you do go to for ear care, hearing tests etc HAS A FORMAL SOUND PROOF ROOM. NOT a desktop audiogram tone generator. Stick him into that soundproof, slam the door shut and we will have in a short time a chart you need to keep a copy of. To show the DOT Doctor that yes your man passed with hearing aids. (New ones)

Do not depend on the crappy 20 dollar hearing aids, there is no upper level noise protection, no comfort in the ear buds versus proper fitted molds made specifically for him and a range of features that protect the hearing. You can actually get hurt with the 20 dollar hearing aids. Why do I use them, well, if I go to the doctor for 30 minutes to talk, they are there for that otherwise I am deaf. It matters not to me either way, I can function with or without.

If your man possesses a CDL already, make sure he goes to the DMV and swears out a Tier Two document that allows him to keep that A license and not get downgraded for no DOT medical card. He will only be able to drive a farm truck limited and no formal trucking in state or crossing state lines at all.

I spent too much time by the sea. My voice is strictly on or off. Monotone. I don't use it unless I have to. Some deaf should not use voice at all, what comes out is not human. They know that. A normal hearing person actually regulates the outgoing voice as you speak using your own ears. When you are deaf there is nothing there to regulate with. And so the voice is a form of failure.

Go see the audiologist. Make sure he or she has a formal sound proof room to test in. What that chart is made all will be known what is possible or not. There is a very good chance that if you cannot hear at 500, 1000 and 2000 at 40 Db sound level then that person is disabled by deafness, SSA is your next stop. It will take approx a year to process a claim.

 

If that is the case then nothing will help. Thats a formal diagnosis or two.

That is one reason I strongly say against running out and buying crappy hearing aids, you only hurt your ears.