Hearing aids

[Backbone]

Yep, going through this myself right now. Just retired from the Army with 50% hearing loss. (Didn't know I had a problem til my retirement physical). Hearing aids make me feel like I am in my own head, I hate the feeling. When I hear music, it sounds like I am in a rock crusher...I can't stand the choir music at church! Really does blow!

 

[Backbone]

Man, you need to fight this. Regardless of how your hearing was damaged, either in the Guard at drill/AT or while on active duty, it dosen't matter. You need to see a Veteran's Service Officer and get your claim filed!

8" huh...that system has been obsolete for sometime now. I am a retired F.A. LTC and I only saw a few way back in hte late 80s.

That might be a probelm.

 

[trapper704]

I ran heavy equipment all my life, along with motorcycles,, chainsaws, shooting etc. Soo I spend a lot of my time saying hunh what did you say, stop whispering etc. I would look into hearing aids but don't have the bucks for the ones that would do me any good. guess I will have to keep nodding my head and smileing.

 

[Skye]

Hearing aids are like vacuum cleaners - They all suck but some cost more than others.

It's not necessary to spend $5000 plus to find out if they help you as they all do the same thing - Amplify sound.

Google "Hearing Help Express" and get into an effective hearing aid for around $300. Most likely there are other companies out there also who have quality equipment at a reasonable price.

The high cost of aids is because of "Direct selling" I know because I used to sell Kirby vacuum cleaners.

Skye

 

[\\-olf]

Hearing aids are like vacuum cleaners - They all suck but some cost more than others.

It's not necessary to spend $5000 plus to find out if they help you as they all do the same thing - Amplify sound.

Google "Hearing Help Express" and get into an effective hearing aid for around $300. Most likely there are other companies out there also who have quality equipment at a reasonable price.

Skye

I think there's more to hearing aids than just amplification, there's a number of added features, functions as well as the considerations of quality of the amplified sound too.
The $300 aid compared to the $2500 aid could be thought of in terms of listening to a song played on one of those old victrolas
with the heavy needle and sound coming out of the mono horn v/s listening to the song on a modern electronic player with a top of the line Bose speaker system- both will reproduce and play the song and you'll hear it, but if you don't like the tinny, scratchy sound quality of those old Edison records from the 1920's you'll prefer the Kenwood stereo with Bose speakers without a seconds' hesitation.

The $2500 aid has different features as well, all of which add cost whether you want/need those features or not, still, that's $5,000 for a pair, plus two batteries every time you need to replace those and over a year's time the costs for batteries adds up.
Within a year or two your new aid is already obsolete as a model- the maker having come out with a newer one.
But if all you plan to do is use an aid for occasional events like monthly business meetings, once a month club events, the occasional party etc then the $300 aid is probably all you need, but for someone who has significant hearing loss and has to wear it/them on a daily basis, with alot of amplification demand, I don't think the $300 aid is going to cut it.

No matter how good the sound is, it's still ARTIFICIAL, and sounds that way. They can also make the ear canal hot in the summer as you wear them, and they can be a real pain in the behind to deal with.

 

[jdh]

Writerinmo,
Unless you have a major combat induced injury everybody gets denied the first time, the second time, and usually the third time. Keep appealing and piling on documentation.

 

[kent11202]

OK, I made it through the evening with the things in place. Although I can hear myself talk to the dog (wife in FL right now) it's not too annoying - yet.

The good news is that I could actually hear the TV program without cranking up the volume - the aids seem to be addressing the frequencies I've had trouble with.

As far as batteries go, they really aren't that expensive. My aids call for the #10 zinc air-activated one's made by Renata. A quick search found them at Sears - 6 batteries for $10.43. They are supposed to last about a week depending on usage so that's about $180 per year. Of course, if you use them less often, the cost will be less.

 

[ColColt]

The high cost of aids is because of "Direct selling" I know because I used to sell Kirby vacuum cleaners.

Skye

I didn't know they still sold Kirby's. I bought a system back in 1982 for $1100!! It was a good investment as I still have my Heritage II and it's still working after brush replacement(motor) and a couple rollers over the years.

I think there's some good and not so good with hearing aids. I wouldn't want some that were so sensitive I could hear my dog break wind but being able to hear conversation across the table at a restaurant would be nice. You have to be careful of smiling and nodding your head when someone says something...think about it.

Living alone I can crank the volume up on the TV as loud as I want. I can tell when I've reached the limit when my dog jumps off the couch and goes to his crate.

 

[\\-olf]

OK, I made it through the evening with the things in place. Although I can hear myself talk to the dog (wife in FL right now) it's not too annoying - yet.

The good news is that I could actually hear the TV program without cranking up the volume - the aids seem to be addressing the frequencies I've had trouble with.

As far as batteries go, they really aren't that expensive. My aids call for the #10 zinc air-activated one's made by Renata. A quick search found them at Sears - 6 batteries for $10.43. They are supposed to last about a week depending on usage so that's about $180 per year. Of course, if you use them less often, the cost will be less.

I remember having a certain number of those batteries wind up dead in the package brand new, or not lasting as long as others in the package, but yes it depends on how you use the aid, still, the costs do add up and if you are on a fixed income or without a job it becomes much harder to plunk down that $11 on hearing aid batteries.

I also think once you get used to the aid(s) when you take them off (or they need repairs and you are without) you'll REALLY feel deaf and notice your hearing loss because you got used to the amplification.

 

[kent11202]

I remember having a certain number of those batteries wind up dead in the package brand new, or not lasting as long as others in the package, but yes it depends on how you use the aid, still, the costs do add up and if you are on a fixed income or without a job it becomes much harder to plunk down that $11 on hearing aid batteries.

I also think once you get used to the aid(s) when you take them off (or they need repairs and you are without) you'll REALLY feel deaf and notice your hearing loss because you got used to the amplification.

I know you aren't calling me out but If my post sounded like I view $11 as "chump change," that was not my intent.

For those on a fixed income, under-employed or not employed at all, please accept my apology if you took it that way.

 

[Capt Steve]

I've had my hearing aids for 15 years, on my 4th set. The latest ones cost $3400 (a pair), and include the remote and full Blue Tooth. Even has a Blue tooth transmitter that plugs into the HD TV and broadcasts directly into my aids as well as the cell phone doing the same thing. If you have aids and don't wear them you are crazy. Get them adjusted correctly so that they work well for you. They have no function lying in a drawer.

Costco is another good place to buy on price point, not so hot for personalized service. I got the same Siemens aids that Costco sells for a couple of hundred more but from a company that provides excellent service. I went in 4 times in the first 6 weeks until he got them adjusted just right. They also replace them every year for the first three at no charge.

 

[H Richard]

If any of you with Tinnitus are ex-military and were subject to loud noises, (lots of gunfire, jet engines running at full throttle, loud machinery like tanks, etc.) you "may" be entitled to a partial disability and free hearing aids from the VA. I was a jet engine mechanic back in 1959-1963, and I did have a documented hearing loss when I got out. My Tinnitus developed gradually over the next 15-20 years, and I just lived with it. After I retired and my Tinnitus, and the mumbling all the people did that I couldn't understand became more than I could handle, I contacted a state VA rep, who filed the paperwork and after a couple trips to a VA Hospital and testing, and about 6 months I received an award for $123 per month as a VA Disability,(now $127) and a fitting of hearing aids (and they furnish the batteries also).

I figured I did my part by waiting about 45 years before filing. Saved the Gov't a lot of money (which they wasted on other things). So if you might qualify, go look into it.

 

[\\-olf]

I know you aren't calling me out but If my post sounded like I view $11 as "chump change," that was not my intent.

For those on a fixed income, under-employed or not employed at all, please accept my apology if you took it that way.

No no, not at all, no offense taken or intended neighbor, I just thought I would comment on the unfortunate fact that to an ever growing segment of our population, that $11 can mean the difference between eating and paying rent or buying medications needed to stay alive.

For you probably, and for me, $11 IS chump change, I mean, I just spent $2000 last week at an auction, and $700 at a gun store the other day, so $11 would not mean much to me at all, but I do recognize $11 CAN make or break someone's bank account because Ive BEEN THERE before, and I've been jobless and homeless one summer in 1987 and know what that's like in the worst way and how I would have LOVED to have gotten my hands on $11 then because it did mean the difference between eating or not.

In 1987 I moved to a new state 3000 miles away, I couldn't find work, and only had my school bus/RV conversion to live in, and no car. I had no cc, no phone, no more money left, the RV hadn't been fully converted yet, the "easy to find" jobs a friend there told me about didn't happen, my landlord evicted me when I fell one month behind, and I was parked by the side of the road in town in July with no air conditioning and about 5 gallons of fuel left in a 60 gallon tank. I had to go to a church at random and get a stupid FOOD BOX, ugg that was the pits!

I literally had to roll pennies and pocket change which I had to turn in for paper cash to buy dog food for the dogs. $11 at that time was for lack of a better word- a fortune because I had nothing. I don't know WHAT I would have done if I needed medications for a heart ailment or something of that sort.

When I qualified for food stamps which was the only help I could get frm the state, I had to go store to store and buy small items in order to get change back to even put gas in the tank and get to a PT job janitorial I finally found, but the trip to work 30 miles away in a larger city cost me more in gas than I earned working 4 hours a day so I had to give it up, there was no place to park a 70 passenger school bus, plus I had several show-dogs and a litetr of puppies at the time too, plans and hopes I had all made were totally messed up by the circumstances, it was a real disaster in every way and there was no one in the family who could help me.

Long story short, a relative had passed away then and had left a 25k life insurance policy and IRA to me, and my former neighbor/deputy sheriff and his wife who owned a ranch next to the RV pad I had been evicted from invited me to park on their ranch untill I got on my feet! so that was my rescue life-saver!

This is the unfortunate fact of life today more than ever with the economy and mortgage foreclosures by the thousands a DAY!
I learned a lot from 1987, and when I bought my present house 13 years ago I made sure I paid off the mortgage FIRST, and that was paid off in just 6 years with extra payments on the principal, and sending in additional coupons each month so as to be paid up a year in advance. Every time I got a xmas bonus at work or extra money, it went on the principal of the loan.

 

[Cleandean]

Me too

I'm glad someone can afford those things. I have tinnitus and was told about 20 years or so ago I needed hearing aids. I said, "What do you means, aids". The trouble is my left ear with the ringing." The doc said, more or less, the right ear apparently is nearly as bad even though there's no obvious ringing like in the left one...maybe it tried to pick up where the left one fell short. That price back then was $1100 for ONE of them! Can you imagine what they'd cost me today?

Insurance won't pick up the tab for hearing aids...at least Medicare won't so, I guess I'll listen to whistles and bells forevermore and turn the TV volume up to 40. Forget female voices. They speak to me with my back turned and I don't hear a thing. Some guys even mumble. The other day I wrote Walgreen's Pharmacy a check for $47.88 because that's what I heard him say. I got home, looked at the receipt and it was $37.88. Aggravating, simply aggravating.

ME too] I'm 61 and don't know what remedy if any is available.

 

[jdh]

First set I got a grant from the state. Second set the VA provided. Primary care doc refered me, I think, because she got tired of repeating herself.

 

[kent11202]

For what it's worth, when it comes to tinnitus, the VA might be a good place to start. I met a guy that works for them and the subject came up. According to him, there's some sort or "treatment" program that can help. I think it's a "conditioning" or "white noise" treatment that helps the brain minimize the effect. You might also go online to the Mayo Clinic and see what they have to say about treatment.

I'd post a link but I can't figure out how to do that (short of typing in the ENTIRE url) or how to copy text info from another website onto this one.....grrrrrrrr

ETA - For what it's worth, I found this at the Mayo Clinic site

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/tinnitus/DS00365/DSECTION=treatments-and-drugs

 

[Maddog 521]

I have United Health Care health insurance and they paid 60% of the Starkey Digital hearing aids that I have. I am lucky I guess. I have a friend that is much younger than I am and he has to pay his in full. I get along just fine with mine although I don't wear them when I am home alone. I just turn the volume up.