These days they maybe get 3-6 hours of use a week at best. That is often the case during the academic year though. I have interpreters for everything, my work is an ASL environment...I don't really need to hear. During the summer I use them more though.
Audiogram today
- Thread starter JennyB
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These days they maybe get 3-6 hours of use a week at best. That is often the case during the academic year though. I have interpreters for everything, my work is an ASL environment...I don't really need to hear. During the summer I use them more though.
ecp
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Naida
I'm currently trying out a Naida and a Starkey destiny (one in each ear). I really love the Naida but it isn't loud enough.
It does really suck to loose the ability to understand speech.
My hearing loss is progressive. One year I went from being "sorta deaf" to Profoundly deaf. That was a shock.
I also had a new audiogram recently. Still severe to profound but the high frequencies have disappeared. And speech understanding went waaay down. This time is easier. I have an interpreter for classes which makes life easier. Hopefully VocRehab will keep their promise to pay for new hearing aids so that I can go to medical school and be an awesome doctor.
[PS JennyB- I can get you some embryonic stem cells. They are from a mouse but I'm sure you would be "cured" if you injected those suckers. And transposition could work too! Shift all the sound to 500hZ and try to understand sound. That has to work. Forget about temporal and tonotopic processing. Transposition to the rescue!]<----sarcasm with love!
I'm currently trying out a Naida and a Starkey destiny (one in each ear). I really love the Naida but it isn't loud enough.
It does really suck to loose the ability to understand speech.
My hearing loss is progressive. One year I went from being "sorta deaf" to Profoundly deaf. That was a shock.
I also had a new audiogram recently. Still severe to profound but the high frequencies have disappeared. And speech understanding went waaay down. This time is easier. I have an interpreter for classes which makes life easier. Hopefully VocRehab will keep their promise to pay for new hearing aids so that I can go to medical school and be an awesome doctor.
[PS JennyB- I can get you some embryonic stem cells. They are from a mouse but I'm sure you would be "cured" if you injected those suckers. And transposition could work too! Shift all the sound to 500hZ and try to understand sound. That has to work. Forget about temporal and tonotopic processing. Transposition to the rescue!]<----sarcasm with love!
This article may be of interest: http://www.etymotic.com/publications/erl-0043-2000.pdf
If I understand the article, IHC's contribute to sound differently than OHC's.
For an 85db HL, the article explains 40% of the IHCs are missing. Would it appear like this:
OXOOXXOOXOXOOXO
X= missing IHC. This would be seen as intermittant cochlear dead regions.
Have you seen my thread on cochlear dead regions yet? I have a good reply there. Don't worry about others, I never had people rude like that to me. I just say I am hearing impaired and they understand. No one can tell me to wear HAs or not, it's my choice how often I want to wear HAs.
How did you score on any speech tests you got at the audiologist, even a SRT test using spondee words? Perhaps reprogramming your HAs not to amplify well into your cochlear dead zones will really improve your speech. Again, see that thread for more info:
http://www.alldeaf.com/hearing-aids-cochlear-implants/63471-good-articles-identifying-cochlear-dead-spots.html
A CI does not care how much or little residual hearing you have, it destroys all natural hearing then stimulates your auditory nerves with electrical pulses. You can have cochlear dead zones with CI if some electrodes malfunction or if your auditory nerve is damaged in some frequencies. The CI can be mapped to transport sounds around the dead zones.
Did you respond(other than vibrotactile) to the bone conduction test? Were you able to respond at anytime in the past when you had more hearing? How much of a conductive loss is your eardrums causing? Any possibility for a tactaid?
I find the Naida adequately loud with the gains turned to the max in the frequencies I can still hear. The low frequencies give the loudness, aren't you at 90db HL in the lows? Were you born hearing? What caused the progressive hearing loss? How much speech do you understand today?
Can you scan it and show us or just type it here? My audiograms are in my blog. I lost my highs sometime after age 16. I read your older posts and you mention CI from time to time. Any interest in CI now? When you lose all your hearing? Never want a CI? Good luck on being a doctor, I used to want to be a doctor myself!
Oh people aren't rude once I explain to them. But the thing is, I hate explaining, especially if it's some meaningless interaction at the store or something. Every time I do, it's like I have to admit that I am defective, like I am apologizing for who I am. F--- that. They can see my aids and make their own conclusion, but I'm sick of demoralizing myself. If it's someone that I am developing a relationship with, then of course I will talk to them about it. But for just everyday interactions? Hell no. Not telling them the specifics of my loss is how I keep myself on an even power level with hearing people. It is how I empower myself.
Just looked at my year old audiogram. My SRT scores: 40 in right. 30 in left. My WRS: 4% in right, 8% in left at 95db
Funny, cause that seems to me worse than a lot of "deaf" people on this forum, and yet because of my normal hearing in the lower frequencies, I don't think many people would actually consider me deaf.
I'm having a new audiogram on Monday. I will talk to the audie about not bothering to boost the dead regions. Makes sense to me.
You know, people, some of us give DD a lot of heat for his constant clucking and pontificating about HAs and stem cells, but he is quite knowledgeable on some matters, and he only means well. I've never seen him say anything mean or nasty (of course, I could have missed something), even when abuse gets hurled at him. I for one appreciate the information he provides. Thanks, DD.
Id try a HINT-Q speech test. Your SRT test appears fine. At 30-40db, you are basically able to understand words using your 500Hz and below hearing which is impressive. I can understand alot of numbers and some sentences my dad says with my HAs. I get a "CNE" on the SRT as I can't understand enough spondee words even at 105db. My 1998 audiogram has a note that numbers were used for my SRT of 95db as I wasn't understanding enough words.
Let's see how you do on a HINT-Q speech test both unaided and aided. After your HAs are reprogrammed, have another test and see how much your speech improved. I am reading on hearing loss to speech score correlation. In your case, you are basically hearing the same as testing hearing people on a low pass speech filter. If I remember correctly, at 500Hz low pass, hearing people were able to score 30% speech. Those with a severe hearing loss, when aided could score much higher since their HAs got the low frequencies to near normal but they had the benefit of being able to hear mid and high frequencies too. Youd of course hear way better unaided than any deaf person.
Have you taken the piano thud test that I linked you to in the cochlear dead region thread? That information will help the audiologist to try different program settings on your HAs. You may find that not amplifying above 1000Hz could cut down on the distortion.
Edit: see if you can get an aided audiogram in the soundfield. It's possible your HAs aren't giving enough gain at 500Hz, 750Hz and 1000Hz. I was looking at lowpass filtered speech samples and hearing people who have speech filtered to 800Hz were scoring better than those with CI! I will do more research on this. It also showed that at 400Hz, speech dropped by a factor of 6 vs. 800Hz! I know someone who has near normal hearing to 750Hz and he impresses the audiologists and everyone by how well he understands speech unaided. HAs give very little improvement as his audiogram quickly slopes to nothing above 750Hz. Even at 1000Hz, his hearing is already quite poor, I think 70-80db HL.
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Yes I have heard on bone conduction tests in the past. My ear drums cause about an extra 20dB of loss. Would I benefit from a tactaid - do you actually mean a tactaid where you feel vibrations on your wrist or chest? Or do you mean bone conduction? I wouldn't benefit from bone conduction aids, no.
TheWriteAlex, see my reply to you above. Also let us know how you do on the piano thud test.
I was thinking vibrating HAs where there's a vibrator in the earmold that would let you hear 20db better as itll bypass the conductive component. Itll be like that device your audiologist uses to perform bone conduction tests but more powerful. Those HAs also would blast out sounds in addition to vibrations and be great for mixed losses. I don't mean BAHA, but wonder if those would work as well? As for an aid on your wrist or chest, can a tactaid be placed on/in the ear instead?
I was thinking vibrating HAs where there's a vibrator in the earmold that would let you hear 20db better as itll bypass the conductive component. Itll be like that device your audiologist uses to perform bone conduction tests but more powerful. Those HAs also would blast out sounds in addition to vibrations and be great for mixed losses. I don't mean BAHA, but wonder if those would work as well? As for an aid on your wrist or chest, can a tactaid be placed on/in the ear instead?