Quote:
Originally Posted by Mockingbird
I believe that the same services available to CI users should be offered to HA users rather than HA users switching to CI and getting training in lipreading and all that stuff and claiming that it was the CI that made the difference. It irks me that health insurance (excluding tricare in the US) won't pay for hearing aids under all/most circumstances yet if you want a prohibitively costly and complicated procedure that may just do the same or worse than HAs they'll gladly foot the bill.
|
Agree with you!
Quote:
|
HAs do not help when they are physically painful to listen to. Don't you think that if we could solve all hearing issues with "MORE VOLUME!!!!!" that we would have done that already?
|
I asked my audiologist this and he knows how to program them so they will be loud but not painful. Like CIs, HAs also have a treshold and comfort level. You want the treshold level to be as low as possible, yet never exceed the comfort level. If I can get my treshold down to 15db at 250Hz, its proof that HAs do a great job, well provided you still have residual hearing.
Quote:
|
You should be judged as being able to achieve significant improvement in speech recognition and environmental awareness using a CI. Decibels don't mean much.
|
One of the posters got down to 10db with CI and actually says it's too good. She's now happy being in the 15-25db range. She tried 40db and everything was too quiet. So she is proof that db does matter to a point. Try turning down the volume on your HA, youll notice everything is too quiet and that people seem to be whispering. Also when you talk people comment on how loud you talk. So yes db is still important.
Thanks for your replies. Keep them comming, I like debates!