[NFB-DB] Feeling even more empowered: I discovered the problem

[Gerardo Corripio]

Gera here from Mexico; it's been maybe several years since posting to the list! To refresh your memories, I'm apart from blind from the Incubator, have 70% bilateral hearing loss, thus since several weeks before turning nine (almost 40 years ago) I've been wearing hearing aids. Since January of last year, I'm using the Signia MOtion SP Primax model, thus here's the question for you'll.

So yesterday I went to this new hearing aid place locally, where the tubing changing was definitely cheaper than where I'd go before! Instead of being around $34USD for both, the new place for both hearing aid tubing change, charged around $13USD! However when my left aid was put on upon the tubing change, I hardly heard out of it!, as if it needed more amplification! Even the tones that indicate program and volume change sounded so low, that even after changing the hearing aid battery when that didn't change, both myself and the audiologist were at a loss! So the original plan was MOnday to take it in, so that he'd put it in an electric dehumidifier for three hours, hoping the hearing aid would set itself right, or if not, sending it in to check would be in order. The thing is at that moment, I couldn't find the words to explain to him exactly how I wasn't hearing! And as I told him "I came in and the left aid was working perfectly fine! So we left it at that, right?, that MOnday we'd bring it in so he could put it in the dehumidifier.

So I got home, and was sort of bothered of what could be going on with my hearing aid?, and starting googling, and wow! When Google AI replied back with the phrase "Sounds don't get into the mold; something is blocking, or it could be a leak within the earhook, or the tubing, in which the air (because the hearing aid gives feedback and everything), instead of going to the earmold, leaks out, right? And so I confirmed the possibility of the leak, when I placed my finger where the tubing and earhook meet, like wrapping around it, I can hear again!, thus when I take off my finger, again the leaking begins. So what kind of bothers me is I couldn't find the words to explain exactly what was going on being in the audiologist's office, but overall how the audiologist (being that he supposedly knows more than we the patients) never even thought of there being a leak somewhere!, thus thinking the hearing aid was indeed going bad! But what bothers me even more, is that he insisted the earhook looks fine! Is it me or the audiologist, or both, that just aren't to par with hearing aids? Or is it normal when we're in the audiologist office, we just don't find the right way to explain things? Even when I asked the audiologist (which my MOm says he did do) compare both aids with the audio Clip (which allows the audiologists to hear what the hearing aid hears, like a doctor's stethoscope, but I don't know if he chedked it with the earmold on or off because he thought maybe there was humidity in the aid.

So what's going on? Is it me or the audiologist, or both? Will I ever find the right audiologist? This shows how sometimes we the users, (of course with the appropriate research) can know more than the audiologist! What happened yesterday makes me feel so empowered!, like ok now I know the left hearing aid doesn't have anything seriously wrong with it; it's just a simple fix MOnday. Whereas had I not thought to Google, who knows what would've happened! So what I've been learning with all this, is to research yourself!, and not just stick with what the audiologist thinks is going on. My gut feeling is that yes maybe the earhook does look "fine", but that there might be a micro-lesion (according to Google), that might be causing this leak to happen. What do you'll think? Because even when I "wrap around my finger", and hearing comes back, I still hear sort of like a bit clogged up; not as clear as before; yes I do hear a bit better after the tubing was changed, but…

Gera
Enviado desde mi iPhone 16e