Diva hearing aid...

Audiofuzzy

Audiofuzzy

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Has anybody seen the Extreme Makeover episode where the patient was Cynthia, a lady with a hearing loss. It was re-runned today.

Apart from regular cosmetic surgery Cynthia received something called Diva Hearing Aid which supposedly helped her hear SO MUCH better than her regular HAs.

I wonder, is it true? From the sites I found on Google it looks like just a digital HA. Does anyone know more about Diva??
I am interested because there was a lot of similarities between her and me hearing impairment-wise.

Fuzzy
 
Fuzzy: I've never heard of it. Interesting. I'll have to do a search on it when I get back home from up north.
 
Fuzzy,

The HA you mentioned is called the Widex Senso Diva. You can read more about it here:

Widex Senso Diva Digital Hearing Aids

I saw that episode of "Extreme Makeover" and was surprised by how much Cynthia could hear with the Diva.

You may be interested to know that companies featured on "Extreme Makeover" and "Extreme Home Makeover" pay a fee in order for their products to be advertised.

Having said that, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because in my opinion the more people with hearing loss you can encourage to wear HAs, the better.

I hate to be a skeptic, but I think Cynthia's experiences with the Widex Senso Diva may have been a bit exaggerated in the hopes of getting viewers with hearing loss (or their family and friends with hearing loss) to purchase these aids.

Having said that, some people benefit more from digital HAs than analogs while others do not. When I tried digital HAs (Oticon DigiFocus II super power), I didn't receive any benefit and they made speech much more difficult to understand. (I had a severe-profound loss at the time.) However, the digital aids were excellent for hearing environmental sounds. In comparing analog vs. digital, I found that my analog aids (Oticon 380Ps) were more powerful and allowed me to understand speech better.
 
I saw that episode and it was quite a good plug for the Diva Hearing Aids. It definitely made them seem like the perfect hearing aids (halleluja, I can hear!!). For me this was not true. Even when my hearing was at the 55 to 60 db level I still had trouble listening to the TV. Crowds were another problem. I also doing the dishes the hearing aids would cut out. It's like that Verizon commercial("Can you hear me now?"). Hearing aids do have their limitations and no one should expect to hear perfectly with hearing aids. The Divas are not cheap( somewhere around $2500). The price maybe less because Widex has some newer hearing aids.

I have worn a Diva Hearing aid in my right ear for 5 years and in my left ear for 3 years (hearing was normal in left ear 5 years ago). Appearance wise they are great and they are very comfortable, so comfortable I wore them in the shower and went swimming with them one time (just one lap). I adusted to the HA's right away and find the sound very natural. I am still wearing a Diva HA in my right ear because a stronger hearing aid caused too much distortion and headaches. I wear an Oticon SUMO DM in the left.

Everyone is different so you really have to try them to find out how they will work for you. BTW, If you look at the Widex site Cynthia is now really happy with the Widex INTEO.
 
Thank you for your input everyone. I did thought it sounds (lol, no pun intended) too pretty to be true.

However I wonder if anyway the Diva would help me a bit better than my actual Beltone analog BTE, so perhaps next time I will ask for trial period.

I have tried Beltone digital BTE before I got the analogs, but it wasn't working for me.

Fuzzy
 
Will you help me?

Hello,

I am a student in special education and our instructor told us about your website. I almost feel like I am a voyer, peering in on all the posts.

We are learning about the Deaf community and I was wondering if you could let me know what you think would be important for me to know. I have no experience with the Deaf community and have known only one person in my lifetime who was Deaf.

Thank you for your time and your honesty.
 
Safarijane said:
Hello,

I am a student in special education and our instructor told us about your website. I almost feel like I am a voyer, peering in on all the posts.

We are learning about the Deaf community and I was wondering if you could let me know what you think would be important for me to know. I have no experience with the Deaf community and have known only one person in my lifetime who was Deaf.

Thank you for your time and your honesty.
Click to expand...

Have a look at this book list of deaf related books here:

http://www.alldeaf.com/hearing-aids-cochlear-implants/30516-books-about-deafness-ci.html
 
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