d1rock

Hi. I'm brand new to this forum but a long time HA user. For the past thirty years or so I've been fitted with analog and digital ITE and BTE models and have experienced much of the frustration I read about here. While my loss is not as significant as many of you, my speech discrimination is below 50% and beyond 1K the slope is cliff like. I stand on the edge of that cliff every day and...well, my poor wife! But we do the best we can and I have the nod and smile down pat
It is time for new aids again and this time I'm going a different route. I am going to try AmericaHears and see if I'm better at deciphering my own hearing than any of the audis I've worked with in the past. If it doesn't work out then I'll be jumping on the Naida train with yet another audi.
Is anybody interested in me posting my experiences as I go along? I have no vested interest in anyone's else decisions and no affiliation with AmericaHears. I'm just interested in their technology to see if I can get a better result ..at a much lower cost than I've put out through time. Besides, how can I resist the allure of "fuzzy logic" in the ADRO algorithms?
Finally, I truly appreciate and admire the paths and the wildly wonderful spirits of so many of you here. Thank You!

Deafness

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deafdyke

Where have you been getting services? Maybe a good idea might be to get fitted at a School for the Deaf or at a respected ENT hoispital, where they have experiace fitting difficult cases. You really have to go to the best of the best in weird cases.

Bottesini

Well good luck! America Hears is that aid you buy in the mail and program on your computer?

I thought it had to be for a mild loss.

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d1rock

They are the ones although they do the initial programming and you can either try it yourself or work with them in either real time over the Internet or they will email you program changes based on your experiences. As I see it, (em)power(ment) in ways I've never had...They have just come out with a whole new series of 32 channel HAs that fit quite a large range. I'm first going to try out an open fit they recommended based on my profile but may have to go to molds. You get 60 days to try things out and, so far, the process has been very low key. I have only ever used audiologists for fittings in the past, never any HOH ones which actually might be an advantage in ways that only the HOH can understand. Several have been competent, well meaning people but I don't seem to get where I want to be. Yes, I realize that I will never have even relatively "normal' hearing, but I do hold out hope for significant speech recognition. It's been pretty bad of late with a notable increase recently of tinnitus. I hope they enjoy a challenge!

deafdude1

Open fit HAs may be way too weak for your degree of hearing loss. Can you scan and post your audiogram here?

__________________
My reasons for choosing stem cells over CI are numerous. Many thousands have gotten stem cells for all conditions with 90% success rate. I have emailed/contacted stem cell centers, read articles, did my research and know the facts. Chloe got such good results she can hear well without HAs! My hearing loss is the same in both ears. Recent audiogram: 125Hz=55db, 250Hz=70db, 500Hz=90db, 750Hz=110db, 1000Hz-8000Hz=NR at 110db. I discuss my deafness and stem cells in my blog

d1rock

As I understand it, the problem with open fit isn't power so much as feedback. The more open the fit, the shorter/louder the loop back to the microphones and I whistle to the world. However, the latest feedback techno has gotten quite sophisticated and one of the differences with the AmericaHears HA is that it employs fuzzy logic to deal with this. No compression. No transposition (too bad, I like that idea!). Anyway, there are considerable differences from my old Oticons and I plan to use every one of those 60 days to see what we can come up with. They also have units powerful enough with molds and I can always switch to those if the OF isn't adequate. I haven't been excited about HAs in along long time, but this is still pretty interesting. I tried an SIE Epoq recently for a few days and it was so much more comfortable than my molds plus the occlusion issues were gone.
Hope springs.

Phi4Sius

I call SPAM!!!!

d1rock

Phi4Sius...I don't understand your comment...but I did check out your blog. Congrats on the success of your 360e!

d1rock

Anyone? Has "SPAM" somehow killed the thread?
Tomorrow is The Day. If no one is interested in the process, I won't take the time to post about it.

lovezebras

he means to say he thinks YOU are a spammer..did u introduce urself yet properly on AD...that is what should be done when u are going to be a regular just FYI

Bottesini

I am very interested to hear your story. Please keep going. What he meant was he thought you advertising.

Since almost no one here could wear a hearing aid for mild loss, I think you are genuine.

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d1rock

Thanks for clearing that up. I didn't know the right way to introduce myself, I guess. I just stated my facts at the very beginning of the post and launched into the topic of the thread. What I can assure you is that this is genuine, not any sort of spam whatsoever. It is based solely on my experience and is not necessarily ever going to be like anyone else's. That said, even if my hearing loss isn't as great as many of yours, the potential of significantly less expensive yet still modern, possibly effective, technology might be of interest to at least some of you/us...me. If their advertised fitting range is accurate, it will get my hearing within audible ranges up to 2k on both ears and maybe a bit higher on my better ear. If feedback is controlled this will be, to me, amazing. I will begin to learn if it is possible tomorrow. I will also find out whether or not learning to do some of my own programming will be more effective than trying to explain to an audi what I am experiencing. This is also of great interest to me. If I can help find and improve my own results...excellent!
If anyone else benefits from my experiences, good or bad, that would be excellent too.

d1rock

OK. Everything arrived yesterday afternoon and it has all been as described on their website. Everything worked. My initial impressions are positive in that I am definitely hearing a bit more detailed sound than I was with my old aids. They are much more powerful and seem quite comparable to the Oticon Epoq I tried recently. Feedback is more present than with my molds, but it is an open fit so this isn't unexpected. In all, it is like all the previous aids I have ever gotten: initially better than the previous ones, but less than my hopes.
As to the programming side of this system, it is quite interesting. I have only done the initial broad tuning of balancing tonal levels per volume and overall volume settings, but I learned a lot about my ears. For one, when I get into the upper frequencies on my left ear, the HA has plenty of power to amplify but it translates into blasts of sound that are unrelated to tones and can be quite uncomfortable. I turned these regions down quite some ways over the factory programming. Whether it is cochlear damage or recruitment, whatever, when I get things loud enough to hear in those regions, the sound is undecipherable. My right ear does somewhat better in this regard. The best news is that the tuning system is not rocket science, can be easily implemented, tried out, changed and reversed. I am confident that I will be able to find levels for myself at least as well, and likely better, than sitting with an audi. I know there are some truly excellent audis out there who can work magic, but I haven't met her yet. Or him. So I still really like the idea of taking this into my own hands.
Finally, the cons: there is a volume control wheel on the aid but it is difficult to access between the program control button and one of the hooded microphones. I shall have to train my ham fisted fingers to be more delicate. Right. Anyway, #2, when feedback does happen it is quite a powerful blast but fortunately short-lived. I also think that the feedback management is pretty good because with my old aids if I whistled to myself as I do from time to time, they would mimic the sound and buzz in my ears. These don't do that.
Otherwise, things are pretty good overall. I will now spend some time with these settings and trying them out in different situations. If the alternate programs work well, I'll be happy indeed. Right now, all is about as much as I could realistically expect at a much lower price point. So far so good. Not SPAM.

lovezebras

good we don't need spam! Some ppl are just cautious on here getting to know someone and in the end it's a marketing ploy. Good luck with the aids! let us know more when the time comes. If you want you could always get a regular mold at an audi office and change the tubing urself when needed? wouldn't that be better than those dome things?

Bottesini

Yeah, I agree with Alicia. Are real mold would have to work better and you wouldn't get the feedback if the mold was properly made. ( at least not so much )

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d1rock

Well, part of the point for me is to try out an OF to see if it can compare to a mold. I have been wearing molds for ten+ years (and ITEs before that). If the feedback proves too much, I can always switch these for BTEs and molds. The company gives a 60 day trial period (as opposed to my former audi's 30 days) so that should be enough time to evaluate. Right now I am hearing many more higher pitched sounds like fork on plate scrapes and such. Sometimes quiet is better...mostly I just want to hear speech better but I guess I have to put up with the other stuff too.
Deafdude: I'll work on posting my audiogram today...
Well, I managed to attach it, but how do I post it?

Attached Files

audiog pdf.pdf (36.2 KB, 18 views)

d1rock

I have had a few days and some chances to try different situations as well as experiment with the programming capabilities. So far, these are better than any others I have ever had. That said, they are also much newer than my last ones and Should be better. I can use the telephone even without the telecoil program. Higher frequencies remain elusive but I am hearing more and sharper sounds than ever. The programming module/software has a "wizard" that walks you through a variety of situations and sounds that can help define your specific needs. There are both beginner and advanced windows that you can program within and if you think you have just totally messed up, you can always return to last saved or default (original factory recommendations).
After having some feedback problems I tried different domes with smaller vents and they work fine now.
My favorite part outside of actually hearing better is the comfort level of the earpieces. And the programming stuff.
So. Final disclaimer: I am in no way affililiated with anyone except my family, receive no compensation from anyone until next March when SS starts, and don't care if you worry that I am here to SPAM you in any way. I'm not.
If these HAs last a while and have no problems, I am quite pleased with the way they are working. After having paid $2-3000 for HAs in the past, I am Really Pleased these only cost $1100. They are the equal or better of anything I have ever tried and the ability to actually "tune" them myself is excellent. I hope my impressions help someone out there but you all get to make your own choices whatever I think. I'm sorry if I didn't follow the protocol in jumping in here but please don't let that factor in whatever choices you make. I will follow the thread for a little while, am happy to answer questions per my own experiences, but the apparent lack of interest except for one or maybe two of you probably means I will just let it go.

Bottesini

I am glad they are working for you. I know for sure I need a regular mold and can't have open fit and need power aids.

So I don't think anybody bears you ill will. It is only that what you bought won't work for most of us here.

Good luck with your new aids.

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deafdude1

Keep posting your HA experience! I love to learn!

Here's a thread you should read:

Good articles on identifying cochlear dead spots

How do you do on the piano thud test which measures cochlear dead regions?



I recreated your audiogram to make it easier to read. Youll understand after reading the cochlear dead region thread. What different speech tests have you taken and how did you score unaided and aided? Hope your HAs help alot for your aidable slope part of audiogram.

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My reasons for choosing stem cells over CI are numerous. Many thousands have gotten stem cells for all conditions with 90% success rate. I have emailed/contacted stem cell centers, read articles, did my research and know the facts. Chloe got such good results she can hear well without HAs! My hearing loss is the same in both ears. Recent audiogram: 125Hz=55db, 250Hz=70db, 500Hz=90db, 750Hz=110db, 1000Hz-8000Hz=NR at 110db. I discuss my deafness and stem cells in my blog

d1rock

Deafdude. Dude. I just tried your thud test (after reading the dead zone material) and found some fascinating (to me) results. My left ear always tests worse than my right but they were almost identical with the left ear slightly better (!) at the upper limits of my hearing. Things die for both above 1174 but the left ear is better at 1046 than the right. Aided, I get the full 4 seconds up to 967. Now that I have the ability to program my own HAs, I can try a program that decreases the higher frequencies and boosts the low/mid ranges..just for fun. I don't have comparative aided/unaided Speech Detection Thresholds, but unaided discrimination results are 52%@65dB on the right and 40%@70dB on the left. One of the problems I always encounter is that when testing with tones and I get near my tinnitus frequencies, it sets off a level of inner noise that is greater than many of the tones used in the testing. Lots of false positives...
When researching various HAs recently, the transposition feature seemed to be a logical application of digital tech and is the one feature these HAs don't have that I would like to try. The Naida seems to be a bit problematic for some though and that makes me nervous.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to pass along your info and I am looking forward to trying out a practical approach.

d1rock

Thanks, Bottesini. I know that many of you have far greater losses than I but for those who do still find some help with HAs, both OF models and the full mold models both offer a significant degree of amplification. That is part of what makes them interesting to me and perhaps to others too. 55dB of FOG and 130dB of full potential in an OF? Pretty cool! Not up to Naida fitting ranges, but a goodly distance along the path.
From my other reply to DD, you can see I'm excited about trying out a different program more based on dead zone theory than otherwise. Being able to do that on my own is a welcome addition to my HA experience.
So, thanks for your good wishes and know they are returned in full!

deafdude1

That piano thud test will let you know how much improvement reprogramming your HAs achieve. Do you currently achieve an improvement aided vs. unaided? Try turning your volume up on your computer speakers if you haven't already. Have you noticed anything unusual, such as distortion, offkey, hearing multiple tones, etc when you get to around 1000Hz? It's possible that reducing the gain/SPL/MPO as much as possible in your cochlear dead regions will result in less distortion and improved speech scores. Youll want as much gain as possible without feedback in your mid frequencies.

How much speech(without lipreading) can you understand unaided vs. aided when you talk to your wife? Friends? 52% word score(would be about 87% sentence) unaided is in line with the scores of others with your degree of hearing loss from what ive read. False positives are a sign of cochlear dead region, the phantom sounds only add to distortion/misinformation. Youll be able to find out by programming different frequency cutoff points(such as 1000Hz, 1250Hz, 1500Hz, etc) and testing your speech understanding by having your wife or friend talk to you.

My HAs have transposition but it is of no use since the cutoff is 1500Hz. If your cochlea is dead at 1500Hz and above, all you will get are phantom sounds and distortion as I did. Does your HAs come with any close fit dome molds? Perhaps the extra gain youll get without feedback in the mid frequencies could be of help? Your HAs are great and the price is great too. I am a big fan of HAs, my HAs are also great but I wish I had more residual hearing.

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My reasons for choosing stem cells over CI are numerous. Many thousands have gotten stem cells for all conditions with 90% success rate. I have emailed/contacted stem cell centers, read articles, did my research and know the facts. Chloe got such good results she can hear well without HAs! My hearing loss is the same in both ears. Recent audiogram: 125Hz=55db, 250Hz=70db, 500Hz=90db, 750Hz=110db, 1000Hz-8000Hz=NR at 110db. I discuss my deafness and stem cells in my blog

d1rock

Well, wow. I have just totally reprogrammed based on the thud test and it is pretty much the reverse of what had been entered originally. Feedbak is much better. Hearing is better and I gained tones in my right ear up to 1396 Hz and 1046 in my left. Before I changed things around and just gave up on 2K and above, the best I could manage was 880 Hz on either ear though the right could manage tones up to 1046. There is more fine tuning to be done, but a fascinating start to this process! I love being able to try all this out myself. I have some more headroom with the potential of the HAs so, wahoo.
Thanks, DD!
Yes, I have one more dome to try that is less open, not a power dome, but I can certainly try those too.

deafdude1

you are most welcome! It's sure great programming your own HAs! I wish American hears would make HAs for those with profound losses! Alot of people could be hearing better if they could program the HAs themselves since they know their own ears best. I have some questions in the post above(post #22)

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My reasons for choosing stem cells over CI are numerous. Many thousands have gotten stem cells for all conditions with 90% success rate. I have emailed/contacted stem cell centers, read articles, did my research and know the facts. Chloe got such good results she can hear well without HAs! My hearing loss is the same in both ears. Recent audiogram: 125Hz=55db, 250Hz=70db, 500Hz=90db, 750Hz=110db, 1000Hz-8000Hz=NR at 110db. I discuss my deafness and stem cells in my blog

d1rock

In just the short time since reprogramming, my speech discrimination with both wife and son has improved significantly. A lot. Unaided it is far worse and while the new HAs in their original program improved things for them, I was experiencing men's voices as much softer and less distinct. No percentages per se, but probably from 50% to 85/90% in the same room. Still can't hear much from other rooms. Since bumping the lows and mids and cutting all off above 1.5k, I clearly hear cars driving by, a vacuum cleaner next door....all without those same sounds being too loud despite the big bumps.
The programming software has many options for altering things and you can do the aids separately or as a unit. There are also test sounds and voices and situations. When I first programmed a volume level from the computer speakers, I could decipher the recorded woman's voice @ 70dB. Today, after tuning I can hear her voice exceptionally clearly and actually turned the computer down so as not to disturb my sleeping family. TV volume can be diminished a bit but I will leave closed captioning on. I haven't been able to decipher music lyrics in years so anything that improves in that regard will be interesting, but I don't holdout any great hopes.
AmericaHears states their mission as bringing affordable high quality instruments to people who could not otherwise afford them. Perhaps at some point they will extend that beyond mainstream losses and delve into the more profound ranges. If they could even offer the programming module and software... I wonder how much better I could have programmed my old Oticons if I had the chance to try it.
Finally, the thud test unaided ends at 1046. Even increasing the volume doesn't get me far as tones either distort into two tones, then no tonal change from note to note then nothing. Aided is similar but farther up the frequencies. I think that addresses most of your questions but I'm happy to entertain more!

deafdude1

Then you have programmed them correctly

That's an impressive improvement! Can you increase the gains any further without feedback in order to be able to hear at a further distance? Each time the distance doubles, sounds decrease by 6db.

See if different cutoffs improve things, try 1000Hz, 1250Hz, 1750Hz, 2000Hz

There's only a tiny market for profound losses. Many of them have gotten CI already. Others are waiting out for stem cells. Their current HAs are mostly for high frequency losses but they have one for moderate to severe losses. Oh well, my Phonak Naidias are great HAs.

If many people can program their HAs better, then audiologists need to start selling programming module and software. This will save them time of having to reprogram the HAs over and over dozens of times.

1046Hz unaided when you can hear for the full 4 seconds clear? Can you describe what the two tone distortion is like? Aided, does the distortion occur at the same frequencies? What frequency range do you hear "something" and does it sound the same pitch? All those are signs of cochlear dead region.

Was your hearing always like this and is it getting worse or stable?
Have you seen my blog(click audiogram in my sig) looking forward to comments in my blog and chatting to you, I have AIM messenger. You may post AIM screename in blog.

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My reasons for choosing stem cells over CI are numerous. Many thousands have gotten stem cells for all conditions with 90% success rate. I have emailed/contacted stem cell centers, read articles, did my research and know the facts. Chloe got such good results she can hear well without HAs! My hearing loss is the same in both ears. Recent audiogram: 125Hz=55db, 250Hz=70db, 500Hz=90db, 750Hz=110db, 1000Hz-8000Hz=NR at 110db. I discuss my deafness and stem cells in my blog

d1rock

I have been able to spend a bit more time testing and eked a few more frequencies out by carefully and slowly making 1dB changes in frequencies I can hear in right around the edge zones. I am maxed (on HA gain) most of the way below 1.5k but I am hearing a lot more. Sadly, it isn't uncomfortable to me although I have gone from listening to test tones at full computer volume to half volume and even less for some of the test noises in the programming system. It really has helped to identify Deafdude's cochlear dead regions and then program around them. It is still somewhat counterintuitive because you would logically think that amplifying the frequencies you can't hear replaces what you are missing...but it doesn't work quite like that. I've got 7 more weeks of testing before deciding to keep these HAs or not, but I am quite pleased since re-programming.

DD: Unaided 1046 is not a full 4 second sustain, it is just detectable as a distinct tone. 880 seems to be the last pure, sustained tone with either ear and there is a decrease in volume and sustain each step past there aided. However, I can clearly discern tonal steps now up to 1396Hz at full computer volume. Aided sound above 1.5k just becomes, thuds, muddy or nonexistent. Unaided there isn't much of anything above 1046. I have read your blog (wow!) and will comment another time. I would be happy to chat but have never used AIM. You can be sure I will be a strong supporter of your journey through stem cell research and application!
I have had tinnitus since at least 18 y.o. but wasn't diagnosed with hearing loss until in my mid 30's. I have been aided since 1984 (almost as long as you?) and things have been relatively stable. I have lost some mids and speech discrimination since my previous audiogram 4 years ago. My left ear has also deteriorated a bit since then. My father was deaf in his left ear and despite all technological/biological advances in audiology, I hope my son isn't. So far, so good!

d1rock

Another update....in the rarefied atmosphere of home, things were working well, but in the real world things needed to be different. My discrimination was not as good as I thought and relying on low end gain to compensate resulted in a lot of sound that obscured, rather than clarified, speech. Home programming to the rescue! Continued experimentation has boosted a few more frequencies to viable ranges and backing off on the low/mid regions has helped balance sounds better. Feedback continues to be almost nonexistent and my speech recognition is now recognizably better in most situations. I tried out a couple of noisy restaurants in the past week and found them to be OK. The HAs have four potential programs and the algorithm for noisy places is pretty good. I haven't tried the telecoil program yet, or some of the other options, but compared to my previous HAs, I haven't needed to. Next I am going to try a foam dome. I'm doing OK but want more...If foam domes help I may stop there but I have two other options above that in the form of mini molds (thin tube + canal mold) or a large tube BTE with conventional concha molds. So far, the comfort of open fit is so much better I hope I can find a workable tuning/dome combination that allows me to maintain it.

Finally, DeafDude: I have been following your blog but unable to comment upon it as I said I would. I will, but am not sure how to do that. Feel free to enlighten me!

deafdude1

Keep up the good programming! Any speech you don't understand, you can get from lipreading. I relay mostly on lipreading as my hearing with HAs is far poorer than your hearing unaided. As for commenting on my blog, what error do you get? Try leaving an anonymous comment and youll have to type in the letters to verify.

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My reasons for choosing stem cells over CI are numerous. Many thousands have gotten stem cells for all conditions with 90% success rate. I have emailed/contacted stem cell centers, read articles, did my research and know the facts. Chloe got such good results she can hear well without HAs! My hearing loss is the same in both ears. Recent audiogram: 125Hz=55db, 250Hz=70db, 500Hz=90db, 750Hz=110db, 1000Hz-8000Hz=NR at 110db. I discuss my deafness and stem cells in my blog

deafdude1

delete double post

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My reasons for choosing stem cells over CI are numerous. Many thousands have gotten stem cells for all conditions with 90% success rate. I have emailed/contacted stem cell centers, read articles, did my research and know the facts. Chloe got such good results she can hear well without HAs! My hearing loss is the same in both ears. Recent audiogram: 125Hz=55db, 250Hz=70db, 500Hz=90db, 750Hz=110db, 1000Hz-8000Hz=NR at 110db. I discuss my deafness and stem cells in my blog