A couple questions

Isaacsmom

Isaacsmom

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Hello everyone!
I am a hearing mom of a deaf 10 month old boy. He has hearing aids but we don't think they do much. I have some questions that I hope some of you can answer. When the hearing aids whistle does it hurt your ears? Because when our son has feedback in his hearing aids he tugs at his ears. I hope they don't hurt him! Also he cant hear below 100 db, but the test equipment couldnt test louder than that. Could hearing aids possibly help him hear speaking voices? Thanks for your replies! I know these questions are probably silly.
 
I was 9 months old when i had my first hearing aids.. I hated it.. all that racket.. not that I remember it. my mother told me that i threw it in the toilet several times and i once threw it out of the car window. No it doesn't hurt but may tickle behind the eardrum. when the sound goes thru the eardrum.. the eardrum vibrates.. give him time.. make sure you take him to speech therapies and learn sign language at the same time. It will help him pick up sounds.. but doesn't work right away. I am below 100 db myself and with my hearing aids I have about between 50 to 70 db and I do pick up alot of sounds. The only problem I have is i cannot hear high pitch such as fire alarm, whistles, etc. I can hear airplanes in the sky, car coming, my kid calling for me, my dog barking but not sure which direction its coming from. Don't give up with the hearing aids.. Just continue to take him to speech therapies and learn sign language.. he'll get there eventually. have to have a lot of patience!
 
forgot to add.. i can speak really well too.. from going to speech therapies..
 
Normally, most of the times, such feedbacks that do occur doesn't 'hurt', it's more of a nuisance....usually when feedbacks occurs, it can be that the earmold (soft/hard ear piece that fits inside the contour of an ear) is too small or has shrunk in size or the hearing-aid volume is simply turned up too much and with a loose earmold (for various of other reasons, one being--condensation, which is why ear molds are regularly changed yearly, etc.) will cause the effect that is producing feedbacks.
 
Open fit earmolds have a lot more issues than traditional earmolds when it comes to feedback (if you don't know why, it's because they intentionally have a hole in them.) Your son's earmolds probably aren't open fit, but just a note on my part as my earmold is open fit.

Feedback is annoying, but it's usually tolerable. I don't want feedback tones flowing into my ears at 70-80 dB, but if it's really bothering me I can take it off for a little bit or change the program (the latter helps a lot).

Prolonged exposure to sounds that loud *will* damage the ears... Noise exposure in general will cause hearing loss, extremely loud feedback tones constitute the definition of 'noise'. But it shouldn't really damage your son's ears unless it's constant.
 
Roadrunner said:
Normally, most of the times, such feedbacks that do occur doesn't 'hurt', it's more of a nuisance....usually when feedbacks occurs, it can be that the earmold (soft/hard ear piece that fits inside the contour of an ear) is too small or has shrunk in size or the hearing-aid volume is simply turned up too much and with a loose earmold (for various of other reasons, one being--condensation, which is why ear molds are regularly changed yearly, etc.) will cause the effect that is producing feedbacks.
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that's right
 
the feedback is just something you get used to........my hearing aids go INSANE sometimes, and I'm used to it....
 
the audiologist says it happens because his ears are growing and that creates space between the molds and his ears. I just was wondering if it hurt because it was so loud. Also I was wondering, since hearing aids amplify sound, will it be really loud what he hears? Like for example, if he can only hear at 100 db and hearing aids amplify to 60 db, will the sound he hears be really loud or will it be a normal sound? I dont know if this question makes sense or not, but I just hope that the sounds are not painful. I really appreciate your responses. This whole thing is so new to me. Everyone has been so kind and helpful. God Bless you all!
 
Hi Issacsmom,

You said, "I just hope that the sounds are not painful."

No, it is not painful at all. :)
 
Actually I've found that the feed back from my hearing aids annoys other people more than it annoys me!

As long as Isaac is not showing any signs of distress or annoyance I would not worry about the feedback being painful. I've never felt pain from it.

One thing you might want to do if you notice increased feedback is to have his ears checked for wax build up, since this can make it worse.

R2D2
 
Isaacsmom said:
Also I was wondering, since hearing aids amplify sound, will it be really loud what he hears? Like for example, if he can only hear at 100 db and hearing aids amplify to 60 db, will the sound he hears be really loud or will it be a normal sound?
Click to expand...

Nothing that goes through your son's ears will give him "normal" hearing. He has a profound hearing loss. What the hearing aids do is to amplify normal sounds. So say a speech sound is a 50 dB input. The hearing aids add 60 dB, which gives him a 110 dB sound. SInce that's over his threshold, it's sound he can hear. Now, that's a tremendous simplification; parts of the speech signal will be much louder, and parts much softer. He's going to miss some sounds...with that level of hearing loss, it's impossible to bring all sounds into his range without overamplifying other sounds. But lots of people with this loss adapt to the aids, and function like people with no hearing loss. It's hard to predict. Work with him. Lots. The more he learns to depend on sound, the better he'll get.

And get some new earmolds. Squealing may or may not seem painful to him, but it's clearly not pleasant, and you want him to want those aids, not hate them.
 
the feedbacks may hurt your ears since you are hearing but doesn't hurt your child's... like most of us said.. work with him.. don't give up for him not to wear it. it takes a lot of time to get used to. he may not like it at first but he'll get around to it.
 
R2D2 said:
Actually I've found that the feed back from my hearing aids annoys other people more than it annoys me!
R2D2
Click to expand...

LOL Same here! I get dirty looks from other people at work when my hearing aid squeals -- but I am so used to the feedback (and I think it's an annoyance too) though. :)

No, the feedback I get from my hearing aids are not painful at all. :)
 
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