Advice And Tips On Hearing Aids

[Tyna]

My partner now needs bilateral hearing aids. He has to decide between NHS and private and before spending in excess of £2000 has anyone got any tips or advice please.

[Smoggy]

At £2000 give the nhs ones a go first, I have two although I rarely wear them as at work they amplify all the stuff I don't want to hear lile running engines/airlines/moaning bosses so I just turn the radio up, I've heard of someone on a trial of fancy aids in the £2000 for one bracket and he reconed it went back after hearing a fridge over the conversation he was trying to have.

The nhs ones are a lot more refined than in the good old days and they do a good job of setting them up as best they can for you, usually with a couple of different programs for different situations, and £2000 buys a lot of beer!

[ExSurveyor]

Get the NHS ones if they are offered.

I stopped wearing my private one four years ago as I found it overloaded my brain after I started having migraines.

 Strange thing is after having 90 in 9 months my hearing improved and I no longer really need the aid.

A friend has NHS aids and they are excellent.

[Andrewcook]

Hi Tyna as I've got Cochlear implant  I'm glad to be away from the NH S Hearing Aids  . To be honest Tyna it all depends upon his Hearing loss is? Two Private hearing test can help your partner  but go to a well known good Hearing place  . The N H S did not serve me very well due them treated me like Grandad and just shove me off saying that the best they can do for me untill going to an ENT Surgeon cause I had a terrible Earache now got theses Cochlear implant it's great to be Hearing once since 2019 . A message to Griff watch out with me Hearing now as I still lip read . So Tyna a lot to think about for your Partner. Yours Andrew 

 

 

 

[OldBerkshireBoy]

I am currently wearing two NHS over the ear type and find them to be heavy and liable to fall out and in to the water if I bend over. Also so much depends on them being set up for what you feel is a true sound and how they fit around the ear. The lady I see has no problems with me going back and asking for more or less volume, bass or treble as she understands what sounds good in her room sounds different in the outside world.

However as soon as I return to earning a wage again I will then pay the 2k and go back to two in the ear type aids where I can press a button and answer the mobile whilst people think I am talking to myself  and I am not worried about them falling in the water. 

[OldBerkshireBoy]

3 minutes ago, Andrewcook said:

Hi Tyna as I've got Cochlear implant  I'm glad to be away from the NH S Hearing Aids  . To be honest Tyna it all depends upon his Hearing loss is? Two Private hearing test can help your partner  but go to a well known good Hearing place  . The N H S did not serve me very well due them treated me like Grandad and just shove me off saying that the best they can do for me untill going to an ENT Surgeon cause I had a terrible Earache now got theses Cochlear implant it's great to be Hearing once since 2019 . A message to Griff watch out with me Hearing now as I still lip read . So Tyna a lot to think about for your Partner. Yours Andrew 

 

 

 

Andrew, you had very severe hearing loss and yes we never forget lip reading do we 

[Stationerystill]

My dad once bought two expensive programmable hearing aids costing thousands. He did not get on with them and ended up using cheap ones bought from a mail order company for £20.

[Speleologist]

I'm a bit out of date as I'm no longer in the UK, but I have had both private and NHS hearing aids. I have been very pleased with both the NHS aids and the service. The best aids I have ever had were Oticon Spirit Zests on the NHS. None of my private ones have been as good.

My experienc e of NHS service has also been good. In Gosport there was a weekly drop off. Drop it in Thursday morning and it will be fixed for Thursday afternoon. The main audiology centres have also been superb.

When I first got to the point where I needed them my GP said I should go with the NHS as they are just as good. He was right.

If you need any other advice drop me a message. I've been a hearing aid user for 12 years now so have a bit of experience.

[Timbo]

If the NHS ones are offered accept them. My father in law forked out for two of the £2K all singing and dancing hearing aids only to find...they were identical to my NHS programmable in ear hearing aid. 

In my experience, the problem with hearing aids is that whether they are private or NHS appliances, they will end up in a drawer and not used. All male members of my family are deaf to some degree or other. Like my Dad, Uncle Albert, this happened to me in my early thirties. I was fortunate in that I had been brought up in the non-hearing community, Uncle Albert was a BSL instructor, so I learned BSL as I grew up as well as lip reading skills.

I much prefer to rely on my lip reading than I rely on any hearing aid. In fact, Ellie and I had been together for ten years before she realised I was indeed deaf and had a hearing aid. She discovered my hearing aid in my desk drawer and thought it was Uncle Albert's.
"Why don't you wear it?" she asked.
"Well, I'm deaf on my left hand side and I do all the driving!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I've found that when I wear my hearing aid you talk about perfume, handbags and your friends. If I don't wear it you talk about football, boats, fishing and woodwork!" was my reply.

Half the battle as my hearing has worsened, has been training those around me to avoid things like talking to me as they are walking away from me or looking away from me as they speak.

Children's television programming has been a big help. The kids and many parents are now familiar with makaton signing as well as more effective communication skills. For example, both my grandkids, even little Arlo, automatically will touch my arm if what they are saying is intended for me.

The familiarity with makaton in the young and their families has meant that I have hardly struggled recently with mask wearing.

My ultimate advice is go with the NHS first. It gives you a baseline and a familiarity before you expend your hard earned. Then you have something to compare the expensive aids with and be able to notice if they are any benefit in the long run. The NHS have always been excellent for me.

[Smoggy]

I think mine are oticon spirit's, I got one of the streamers secondhand of ebay which gave me the option of remotely controlling the volume/mute/programs with the streamer in my pocket, it can also be used with bluetooth gadgets so means I can link it to my phone if required and play music through them, it means when someone is peeing me off in a pub I can mute them without anyone noticing with the streamer in my pocket.

I got mine linked so one volume matches both but before that I found it quite useful to turn one down on the side of an idiot to block them out a bit, main problem was the main idiot was always in between the hearing aids.

[grendel]

not a hearing aid wearer, but i do suffer from tinnitus, thus i cannot make out what someone is saying when there is loud background noise, I only realised that I rely on being able to see someones mouth when they are speaking with me as i can then tune in to what they are saying and hear them, mask wearing made my life more difficult as now anything said just gets added to background noise and i cant make out what someone is saying, that said if a noise does happen and its quiet in the background, I can hear a pin drop at three rooms away, I can also hear a conversation if I can see the persons mouth. so I guess I can lip read, but its more of a combination i use to sort out whats being addressed to me.

[annv]

Hi My Sister worked for a impaired hearing charity she said that when i needed hearing aids that the NHS ones where as good or better than many private ones i certainly have had very good service from NHS  but now that it is farmed out to spec-savers the service from where i go is not very good they want to sell sell i would certainly advise to try the Nhs ones first,  my son in law paid thousands for his which dont appear to be any better than mine, except his are inside his ear and mine lodge behind the ear, but as i cant try his for obvious reasons i cant be certain also the NHS supply free battery's on demand, they need changing weekly. John

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Dont think the NHS will offer you the in the ear type on the NHS, certainly they were not offered in Norfolk and my batteries last longer than a week. Specsavers, Boots and others are now in the hearing aid market but wouldnt say it is farmed out to them unless it varies to where you live.

[annv]

Hi Tyna Just to add the ones the NHS hospitable gave me where very good but! when i went back to get them adjusted i was told i now need to go to spec savers who immediately said that they need changing, they gave me Octicon which fit just the same but i have been back several times to get them adjusted, i still dont think they are as good as the hospital ones were, when told this to sister she said they have had no end of complaints about specsavers she also said why did i not keep the old ones, a bit late now but if any body else goes through this you can keep your old ones in spit of what they say. John

[Tyna]

2 hours ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Dont think the NHS will offer you the in the ear type on the NHS, certainly they were not offered in Norfolk and my batteries last longer than a week. Specsavers, Boots and others are now in the hearing aid market but wouldnt say it is farmed out to them unless it varies to where you live.

We live in Martham, Norfolk. Although Specsavers are recognised Audiologists for some of the county this is not the case for our GP. 

[OldBerkshireBoy]

6 minutes ago, Tyna said:

We live in Martham, Norfolk. Although Specsavers are recognised Audiologists for some of the county this is not the case for our GP. 

I also live in Norfolk so it could it be Scrivens who use Starkey products (who I was referred too) and my quoted reply was in response to anothers posting.

[Andrewcook]

Hi Berkshire Boy I would admit as to having my New Found of Hearing with the Cochlea Implant was a disaster at first as I did upset a few people of my miss understanding and Hearing to which I hope they've forgave me for that. Since then it has improve to 99 percent of Hearing. Now the only Draw back is this Mask don't help on Hearing  people speaking and Lip Reading very frustrating for me like wise I now know what's it like to my miss Hearing to the People in the past.

[SteveO]

Our local GP practice refers you to Specsavers for hearing aids. My wife has 2 of the NHS ones which they set up. They are quite good, but eat batteries and emit audible shrieks when the batteries are running down. She bought her last lot of batteries from Amazon and they last much longer than the "freebies" you get from the NHS.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Should anybody be out and about when a battery dies without having a new one upon them then Sainsbury's sell the s13 batteries. Other supermarkets may as well. 

[addicted]

I'm pretty sure I would benefit from having hearing aids however when  I was referred to specsavers for a hearing test by my Gp I was told that I did not need them. I must say that when I found that I would have to go to Specsavers my heart sunk somewhat as both Tony and I  had very poor service from them. We even changed branches  both were equally awful so I'm not sure what to do now.

 

Carole

[OldBerkshireBoy]

8 minutes ago, addicted said:

I'm pretty sure I would benefit from having hearing aids however when  I was referred to specsavers for a hearing test by my Gp I was told that I did not need them. I must say that when I found that I would have to go to Specsavers my heart sunk somewhat as both Tony and I  had very poor service from them. We even changed branches  both were equally awful so I'm not sure what to do now.

 

Carole

Did they show you a graph showing your results for the different tones or print the graph off for you to keep.

[vanessan]

Has anybody used Hearing Direct or any of the other online hearing aid companies? I know you can’t get the ‘personal’ service or fitting but their prices seem good. Too good to be true probably. 

[addicted]

it was 2-3 years ago and I honestly can't remember but I don't think I was given anything to bring away with me but "result for different tones" rings a bell. I think my test showed some loss of  hearing but insufficient for any aid to be supplied on the health service.

 

 

Carole

[OldBerkshireBoy]

6 minutes ago, addicted said:

it was 2-3 years ago and I honestly can't remember but I don't think I was given anything to bring away with me but "result for different tones" rings a bell. I think my test showed some loss of  hearing but insufficient for any aid to be supplied on the health service.

 

 

Carole

Much can change in 2-3yrs and many places offer a free hearing test. Yes it is to get you through the door to sell but still worth doing if you have doubts about your hearing.

[Tyna]

7 hours ago, addicted said:

I'm pretty sure I would benefit from having hearing aids however when  I was referred to specsavers for a hearing test by my Gp I was told that I did not need them. I must say that when I found that I would have to go to Specsavers my heart sunk somewhat as both Tony and I  had very poor service from them. We even changed branches  both were equally awful so I'm not sure what to do now.

 

Carole

You could try one of the free online hearing tests, this is what alerted my partner that he needed a full hearing test.

https://www.bootshearingcare.com/online-hearing-test/