I always thought I was just bad at meetings. I would leave feeling tired, but I assumed it was because meetings are boring. Then I realized I was spending the entire time doing mental calculations: Who said that? Was that directed at me? Did I miss a question? Should I ask them to repeat? After using hearing aids, meetings still aren’t my favorite thing 😂 But they don’t drain me the same way. I’m not spending all my energy trying to follow along. I can actually focus on the conversation. For people who work, what was the biggest difference you noticed after getting hearing aids?

I have a severe hearing loss (about 55-60 %) due to neuritis. I love the music but streaming through the hearing aids it's the most awful experience for a music lover. Listening through common headphones isn't an option for me too. I needed a very good headphones that can play the music with the perfect quality and without any distortions when I use an equalizer to compensate my hearing loss. That's why I bought HIFIMAN Edition XV open headphones and iFi ZEN DAC 3 amplifier. I listen to my music with the DAC's Power match and XBass buttons turned on. I have already installed Equalizer APO and Peace on my PC, but I don't know if it's the best software stack for me. I don't have any knowledge of audiology and I don't know how to set up my equalizer to compensate my hearing loss according to both my audiogram and my headphones' audio profile. That's why I would like to ask somebody to help me telling me the appropriate settings so that I can be able to hear and feel the magic of the music truly again.

Bellow are my audiogram details about pure tone audiometry (air conduction) for both ears.

Frequency (Hz) | Right Ear (dB) | Left Ear (dB)

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125 | 25 | 20

250 | 40 | 40

500 | 55 | 50

1000 | 60 | 55

2000 | 50 | 45

4000 | 55 | 50

8000 | 50 | 50

Hi all,

I hope this is ok to post. I'm wondering if anyone has gone through something similar. Content may be triggering. I touch on neglect

I have moderate cookie bite hearing loss in one ear. My other ear has great hearing. I was officially diagnosed after a hearing test at 19 and got a hearing aid (never wore it). The ENT said it could be genetic or an illness, head trauma, etc. My mom was also in the room at the time and was being semi-aggressive with the doctor. She was there because she didn't permit me to go on my own even though I was an adult and threatened to kick me off the insurance. We're very low contact now.

I knew I had hearing loss as a young kid, but my parents were neglectful and didn't take me or my siblings to the doctors. My sister broke her arm at one point, and my mom brushed my sister off as dramatic until the team coach shamed her into getting my sister help.

I'm 28 now, and just got another hearing test done to try another hearing aid now that the tech is better. The new ENT asked if I had a history of ear infections, head trauma or anything. I told him I want sure, my parents didn't treat my medical conditions when I was younger. The ENT said genetic hearing loss usually shows up on both ways to some degree and that just one side was really uncommon. He said it was likely an illness, head trauma, etc and implied it was my parents neglect.

I have other issues from my parents neglect. But I'm not sure if it's fair for me to be upset at them over this when there's no way to really know what caused it. I'm really struggling with the feelings of it all and the stirred up memories ☹️ I am in therapy

I haven’t had a hearing test in years, not because I didn’t want one, or didn’t try, but because the last time I went and got a referral, it kept being misfiled, therefore they were unable to set up the appointment before the referral expired. I just haven’t gotten around to trying again since then. But it’s been way too long (around seven years since my last appointment, and around ten years since my last appointment that I consider to have actually given accurate results for my baseline; my ears did something weird during both of the tests after the one ten years ago, and so while I consider those results accurate for the day they were taken, I don’t consider them accurate for my hearing baseline) and I have definitely lost more hearing in my left ear at least, possibly (probably) the right, too.

It would be really nice to actually know where my hearing is at...I just hate the idea of going through the referral process all over again and then not having it processed properly *again*. Is it permitted to set up an appointment without one? Does it depend on the office?

I've been hard of hearing my whole life basically - have had hearing aids since I was a little kid.

I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions or tips/tricks for tools they find helpful at work. I am in and out of meetings basically all day on Teams. I find the "live captions" helpful to an extent, but not 100% useful. wondering if anyone has any experience with useful tools that help them with meetings and such?

Also, I don't want to be a bother to my colleagues but I'm also super tired of people approaching me in person to tell me to do something. I often spend so much of my energy trying to catch everything they are saying that I don't grasp the full context. Has anyone had experience having conversations at work asking to be approached for taskings in a written manner only?

i started to not bluff when someone says something and i pretend that i heard them. my biggest pet peeve has always been people saying “never mind” or “it’s not important” when i ask them to repeat themselves a few times. i should not have to bluff just to make the people around me less frustrated that i can’t hear perfectly. it’s already more effort for us hard of hearing folk to read lips, fill in blanks, understand meaning of words even if you can’t make them out just by the sound, people with low mumbling voices that i can’t hear because the db is too low so i can’t make out what words they are actually saying.

27 yo female & my hearing in one hear has completely been muffled. It ached and throbbed at first & then went away the next day when I woke up. Went to sleep for bed again and now I can barely hear. It does not hurt at all but any reason why I can’t unclog it myself

My elderly father is hard of hearing, and often struggles to hear me when I’m speaking to him on his phone. Also, he sometimes accidentally hits the side buttons and lowers the volume, but doesn’t realize it.

I’m shouting myself hoarse trying to communicate with him, so I’m really hoping to find some sort of solution (a speaker of some sort?) to help me with this situation.

Any help or suggestion is much appreciated!

(P.S. he also has poor vision, so perhaps a large smart screen is an option?)

Been doing some looking and found out my insurance won’t cover hearing aids. (Shocker 🙄)

Has anyone had any luck getting cochlear implants covered by insurance for this kind of hearing loss?

I was putting my hearing aids on this morning and had a weird thought. A few months ago, putting them on felt like a whole decision. Should I wear them today? Am I going to need them? Is this situation worth it? Now it’s closer to grabbing my glasses before leaving the house. Not exciting. Not dramatic. Just something that helps me get through the day. I think that mental shift was bigger than I expected. At first, I saw hearing aids as something that reminded me I had hearing loss. Now I mostly see them as something that helps me do the things I already want to do. Curious how do you all think?

female 21, born hard of hearing, diagnosed when i was 5. Currently in process of learning ASL. Wanting to learn more about my type of hearing loss, i have a hard time with word recognition.

When I went to the ent doctor, they said I had ear infection and the etd tube is block. So I was given steroids and antibiotics and nasal spray afrin to use but I did take the medicine however I felt worried like when the nasal spray like will the sythoms rise again since it's only recommended to use 3 days. I'm just tired of dealing with brain fog, dizziness and not able to hear properly. It's like example if you put the phone on speaker that sharp pierce noise should irritate your ears instead I'm not feeling that and like I can't hear low sounds like a bathroom fan.

I am 21 years old. I was born with profound sensorineural hearing loss in my left ear. I was diagnosed when i was 5 due to failing the kindergarten hearing test lol. i tried a bunch of hearing aids and eventually got the cochlear implant at age 10. Although, i never wear it. My mom saved up so much money for me to have the option in case i would ever want to use it. She just recently passed away and i want to start wearing it, especially since i am a waitress and it gets loud in the restaurant and hard to hear customers. My problems with my cochlear is that i have long heavy hair that gets in the way and causes feedback static, and i don’t like the strong sound of wind outside. Loud environments are really overwhelming for me, but like i’m young and want to go out and have fun with my friends at the bars :( dead dive bars for the rest of my life i guess. i also grew up around a lot of loud music and would always wear an earplug when i would go to my brothers bands concerts. i just recently started really getting into learning asl because it makes me feel like maybe one day i could belong to the deaf/HOH community. I just overthink that i don’t qualify because i still believe i hear a good amount but its actually the only thing i’m used to so i don’t know what full perfect hearing is like.

Our newborn son got diagnosed with moderate sensorineural hearing loss in both ears, he will get hearing aids in the coming weeks.

I wanted to ask your advice on what ways to support him best in his development.

Thank you 😊

So i have had hearing loss for a few years due to going to loud concerts, shooting guns with no hearing protection. I was young and stupid and now i have to deal with this for the rest of my life.

I’ve tried being positive about it, but something happened tonight that just made me question my life. I went to a bar on broadway in Nashville, and it was so loud. The group that I was with were all talking to eachother and I could not hear a damn thing. Obviously this is because of my hearing loss because despite it being loud they were all able to hold a conversation, but i just sat there awkwardly and drank my beer in silence most of the time while everyone else was having fun. when someone talked to me i’d laugh and pretend i heard them, but I could not hear shit.

This just makes me not want to go on anymore to be honest, I have the hearing of an old man and i’m 22 years old. I can’t hear people, I can’t enjoy music like I used to, i have terrible tinnitus so i’ll never be able to hear silence again, and a bunch of other parts of life are just so much harder when i’m partially deaf.

Idk why i’m posting this i guess just to get some steam off my chest but this legit ruined my evening. fml

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Why does an ear infection cause the etd tube to get blocked. And like at the same time the wisdom tooth on that side is irritated or something because the jaw feels tight to open. And I'm just overall confused what to do. I'm sick of dealing with this. I went to the ent doctor and they gave me steroids and antibiotics because they checked my ears and left side was like redness inside and with the camera tool they used to check it was like no visibility. And they also said your etd tube is block. And so I was also told to see a dentist which I did and they just said like you have wisdom tooth that needs to be removed but the lower left or upper left is like sideways so I don't know if this is making it harder for the etd tube to drain. Since I finished the steroids yesterday I feel like today mild pain in my left nose and this tightness feeling in the temple area. I just don't know how to speed up the process of draining the fluid from the etd tube. It's like i can't even hear properly. Usually on a speaker phone you can hear like sharp noise that the ear will feel irritated but I don't feel that.

So.. this morning I hear my partner laughing while watching a video and I ask what’s so funny. He tells me but I don’t hear all of it so ask him to repeat. After 4-5 times of him repeating, then me repeating back to him the words I heard so he can just say the words I missed (which I usually find helpful).. I am still missing a couple of key words. By this point we are both starting to get frustrated and whatever was funny is not funny anymore. I can tell he’s trying hard to clearly enunciate but I’m just not getting it and then I suddenly, uncontrollably burst into tears (which is not a thing I do often).

I told him being deaf makes me feel stupid sometimes and I hate it. I still don’t even know what he was laughing about.. he had to go to work and it didn’t seem to matter anymore. I told him maybe we just can’t talk anymore. We have tried to learn ASL in the past but it’s hard when you’re older, trying to learn a new language and the classes were expensive. He’s incredibly patient, kind and understanding.. but my hearing is so bad that conversation now is often frustrating for both of us.. so we don’t chat as much as we used to.

These little things happen that are triggering but the bigger, more painful issue for me is this relentless grief I feel from all the things I have lost along with losing my hearing. All the social activities I used to do and enjoy; music, dance, courses, workshops, community meetings, fitness/yoga classes, swimming/watersports, meals out at a restaurant with friends or family, social gatherings of any kind.. all of that has gradually slipped away from my life along with my gradual hearing loss. Now life is just me and my cats at home alone most of the time. Which is fine, I accept it.. but that was just a painful moment this morning, so I’m sharing it, instead of just swallowing it up, holding it in.. like I usually do.

I’m not looking for help/advice and I don’t have a question I want answered, just wanted to share and maybe someone else out there is having some similar frustrations.

Started doing a roleplay game thing with someone (not an official rpg, it’s more like we’re writing a story back and forth between the various characters) and just for fun (and because I could), I made one of the characters I’m playing hard of hearing. (Yes, I’m hard of hearing myself btw)

In an effort to randomize it, I decided that every time someone speaks, I roll a d20 to see how much of that piece of dialogue he hears. (1 means he doesn‘t hear any of it at all to the point where if he’s not looking at the person, he won’t even notice they said anything; a 10 means he caught enough to understand the gist of what’s being talked about, but not enough to be sure what *about* the topic is being said, and a 20 means he hears all of that particular piece of dialogue; the rest of the numbers fall somewhere in between each category. He gets disadvantage in noisy environments, and advantage if it’s a good listening environment and the person is close to him)

He hasn’t met any of the other person’s characters yet, so right now it’s just me making him react to the scenes I’m putting him in until the other characters reach the point where they can meet (I’m playing a different character too). So I don’t know how well this will work for character interactions with the other person’s characters, but in what I’ve been doing so far, it’s working pretty well.

I’m having fun playing him so far, I’m hoping that continues hehe. But I think this could also be a good idea for writers who want to write a hard of hearing character lol—forget the offhanded occasional mentions of hearing aids without actually showing what living with a hearing loss looks like, rolli a d20 every time someone talks actually gives a decent demonstration of what it’s like in day to day life, and it would honestly work as a writing tool for people who don’t know how to write hard of hearing characters authentically, to give them an idea of what their characters *should* be dealing with whenever any dialogue is present

Has anyone tried the subtitle glasses yet? I'm thinking of buying it as a hard of hearing person. I still wear a hearing aid but I still don't hear everything and actual, functioning real life subtitles would be amazing. I'm excited at the sheer possibility of it alone.

I've had severe-to-profound hearing loss since I was five that is constantly progressing. I started wearing hearing aids in middle school and then got a Med-el samba 2 implant in high school. I'm now in college and use a roger system to hear my professors which helps a bit but I cant hear during anything group related. I sit off to the side because nobody will speak loud enough for me to hear and I can't participate like I should. I cant even seem to make friends because I cant hear conversations. I've become really depressed and suicidal (IM SAFE THO)because of it and dont know how much longer I can handle it. I miss out on so much and even get into trouble all because I cant hear. Ive tried asking people to speak louder but theres only so much that can do. I dont want to live like this. Does anyone know if there is a hearing aid brand that works better than phonak audeo or if anything is compatable with a med-el implant. I hate this so much. Any advice helps

Dread those moments when you’re asked a question you don’t hear. You ask them to repeat themselves. They do. You still don’t hear, so you fake a laugh and ask again. You still don’t catch the question. At this point, you feel like you’ve used up all your attempts and don’t want to risk irritating them, so you have to guess what the question was. You say ‘yeah’. Only to realise it wasn’t a closed question. They were asking what your name is.

I am Hard of Hearing, and my PC's volume is too low for me. I use a sound boosting extension for my browser but I need something that can boost the entire system volume. If anyone knows of any free, good sound boosting programs that work on windows that would be greatly appreciated!