HEARING AID PROBLEM

[mellotte]

A few months ago, I went into two digital hearing aids (NHS Phonax) from one. My hearing is particularly bad with backgound noise - "cocktail party deafness" - and often haven't a clue what some other people are saying. Although the aids clearly make a difference for the better when putting them on, in a noisy environment, eg party, my hearing aids seem to turn into ear plugs rather than aids. I can ease the problem sometimes by pulling on tube thereby breaking the seal so allowing natural sound in or sometimes by pushing ear upwards from underneath achieving same effect. Have raised problem with hospital audio dept but agreed problem might be use of "2 beeps" immediate environment setting and not facing speaker. Now discovered 1 beep general setting no better. Net result is that I tend to abandon aids because they are adding to problem. Any suggestions?

[Digital Hearing Care]

Hi Melotte it's difficult to give anything but general advice, not knowing your type and level of hearing loss. Wearing a pair of Naida's that would indicate a fairly substantial hearing loss. Not that I'm trying to teach grandma to suck eggs but hearing aids can't replace natural hearing, only enhance the residual hearing that remains.
With severe / profound hearing loss (I'm guessing your type of loss based on the hearing aids you have been prescribed) it gets difficult to deliver a really good result particularly in the most challenging environments you are struggling with.
Having said all that the Naida is a very capable hearing aid and I think your best course of action is to persevere with the NHS dept, asking them to make adjustments to see if you can get a better result. Unfortunately with this type of problem all you can do is ask for adjustments and then put yourseldf in this type of environment and see how it goes, maybe trying a few different alternative settings.
It is worth persevering, my experience is that even small changes can have quite marked improvements. Good luck with it.

[mellotte]

Thanks for your prompt reply. Apart from background noise situation, my hearing isn't too bad, although my wife might not agree (but then I often can't compete with TV or radio when called from other room)! What I don't understand is why the hearing aids become like ear plugs in a noisy situation. That is, if I move them letting natural sound in, the level and quality of sound is better than hearing aid assisted sound. It's as if hearing aid switches off when the sound reaches a certain level (but returns to normal away from noise). 

[Digital Hearing Care]

Hi Melotte, it could quite feasibly be the way the aids are set up, that they are compressing too much when noise is present. A simple adjustment from your friendly hearing aid audiologist may well sort the problem satisfactorily. That would be the first thing I'd look at myself.
Regards

Paul

[Murp]

Melotte,

I agree, probably too much compression.  When in the presence of loud sound, hearing aids decrease amplification for your hearing comfort.   Unfortunately, if there is too much compression, or the compression thresholds are set too low, the hearing aids don't allow voice sounds to shine through all the other ambient background noise.

This can easily be corrected by have the hearing care provider:
#1 - increase the threshold of compression, or
#2 - increase the MPO (Maximum Power Output), or
#3 - decrease the compression ratio's.

Good luck and the audi will know what we are talking about.