Hearing

Hearing is an important thing in life like Seeing and coordination and communication. They all work together.

About 10 years now or longer I lost directional hearing which just means I could no longer tell which direction a sound was coming from. About 5 years ago my two daughters and wife got tired of hearing me say, "What?" so many times and ganged up on me to get my hearing tested. And the hearing specialist said I should wear hearing aids especially in restaurants and parties to clarify consonents which was what I was having a problem understanding especially in women because it is the higher range of sounds (motorcycles, chain saws, bullets going of in rifles and pistols, and bolt guns on construction jobs in my teens and twenties without proper hearing protection). For example, I built a home without electricity with a chain saw without a generator but sometimes without ear protection (when I lost one or both ear plugs) for example in the early 1980s when I was in my early 30s. All these things and more caused my hearing difficulty with consonents today. It is mostly distinguishing B's from T's and P's and other things like that which makes for really funny answers from me at times. "You said What?" or "You did What to who?"

So, anyway they made me get Starkey loop over the ear invisible hearing aids at first (the clear tube over the ear you cannot see and since I wear my hair a little over my ears people couldn't tell I was wearing hearing aids unless they knew before hand.

The problem of wearing hearing aids at first (for me) I would say is "hearing hallucinations". In other words often at first you have no idea at all what the sounds you are hearing are unless someone is talking. So, you might pull your hearing aids out to figure out a sound at first for example. So, the brain is not used to all these "New" sounds and has to re-categorize sounds for hearing aids and not for hearing aids. So, after about a year of this you don't like hearing aids as much. The other thing is you have to pull them out of your ears over night or you might get ear infections. Also, I use baby wipes to clean them so I don't accidentally contaminate my ears with foreign bacteria that might give me an ear infection. Most hearing aids are water resistant but not water proof so this is something to think about too.

My first set were Starkeys and about 2500 to 3000 dollars to purchase. My second set are worn internally in  your ear canal and are about 5000 to 6000 and are based upon the spy ones you see in movies like "Spy" with Melissa McCarthy and Jude Law.

They have a little plastic tab to pull them out of the ear canal at night when you sleep so you don't get ear infections.

However, you don't really want to wear most hearing aids when loud music is playing or there is a lot of wind noise in a car or jet engine noise in a plane or this will just destroy your hearing from all the amplification that happens.

So, be careful of all this. I also take out my hearing aids at movies where the sound can get very loud too at theaters.

Hopefully, if you are new to hearing aids and need a set what I said here will be helpful in your life.

The real problem is don't wait too long because if you wait too long you could lose your hearing completely if you don't get hearing aids soon enough. And this isn't usually fixable if you wait too long to get hearing aids.

So, this is something to think about too.

What happens is if you wait too long the brain forgets how to hear so it won't process hearing anymore. So, get hearing aids as soon as you start saying "What?" and get your hearing tested by a professional.