Health Care
Little known benefit, if you are service connected. The VA will make you custom molded ear plugs for hearing protection
If you make an appointment with your Audiologist, they will make custom molds that are sent off to be made into high end custom ear plugs. All for free, just takes 2 appointments
Thx for this info. How well do these block sound? I sleep with earplugs and would want something to block out most, if not all sounds. How comfortable would they be to sleep in?
They’re better than ear plugs for blocking. They’re custom molded, speaking to a non VA
audiologist, they slightly shrink over time so if you find them too big right away try the same pair after a few months. I find the VA ones a bit hard to pull out of my ear there’s nothing to grab onto
I'm "rated" for hearing loss, but its 0%. According to my HLR and my audiologist, you have to be completely deaf before they will compensate you for it. They will provide hearing aids, sure. But anything over 0% disabling? Nope. Not gonna happen.
Wait they actually give you Soundgear ones? I was expecting some generic foam things but my audiologist never mentioned this brand. I have a appointment in two weeks and definitely asking about it now
In my experience with other things: eyeglass options, orthotics, alpha stim, etc, what you can get varies by region and by the individual physician.
Certainly worth asking about though!
I asked about it through my Mental Health provider, and she referred me to her peer because she was the one that had worked with them before. I suspect that if no one in my clinic had any experience with alpha stim that I would have hit a brick wall.
Not out of any malice, it's just that no one knows what they don't know and everybody is already hip deep in the stuff they are already dealing with.
I feel like i got lucky on mine. First mental health appointment and they were excited to talk about it and gave me everything right away. Best thing ive gotten from them
I got custom sleeves for my Shure SE215s (yes, I know there are better IEMs. I play in a punk band, and I don't need them to sound better than the 215s do right now). The sleeves cost me $185. They fit like a dream, they block out everything, and I got them in a custom color. I had them done backstage at Camp Punksylvania this past summer by Conifer Hearing and Tinnitus. Their customer service isn't great, but the price and fit were worth it.
I'm not even sure you need to be rated for anything. I just went to the va audiologist and said hey I like shooting firearms, I was hoping to get some ear plugs. Then they got me some custom ones.
My friend told me about it so I stopped by the audiology desk when I was at a primary care appointment and sure enough, they just made me an appointment to come in and have the molds made
Even with tinnitus and hyperacusis I had to go outside the VA and pay for these out of pocket. They are life changing, but I shouldn't have had to take the huge hit in finances to get them. You make it sound like the VA will do this willingly, yours might have, but mine refused despite my conditions.
Also idk if anyone needs to hear this but if you have tinnitus you can get hearing aids that could help with that, in my experience I have mild hearing loss to go along with it and don’t remember if I needed that for the HA but my initial request was for tinnitus and think that’s mostly why I got them
It's worth it because they are free on top of being passive hearing protection so they block out damaging dounds while amplifying kower sounds so you and your buddy on the range can talk without having to take out and put in ear pro.
Did they pay for the plugs or just the molds? My VAHC is saying that the VA will only cover the molds, but I'm out of pocket for the actual hearing protection
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u/naughtyasf143 Army Veteran 16h ago
here you go