Being married leads to hearing loss, too.

Out for dinner at a crowded, noisy restaurant, I can hear people three tables away carrying on normal conversations.

My wife can say something in a somewhat louder than normal conversation voice, and I'll be damned if I can figure out what she said on the first go-round..

Selective Deafness is real, my friends!

Both of my parents are rapidly going deaf, and they are figuring out the hearing aids right now.  The biggest problem they are running into is that the devices amplify all sound on a particularly frequency range, so if they are in a crowded room, they can hear what you are saying, but it's drowned out by what the other 100 people are saying as well.  Hearing aides are also apparently directional, since neither one of my parents can hear shiat if you are shouting at them from behind.

I've found it far more effective to hit either one on the shoulder when I want to talk to them and then speak loudly in one ear or the other.  At some point I'm going to get them a chalkboard like Gary Oldman used in Immortal Beloved and we'll do conversation old-style.

The noises in my head, make them stop

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeee
pardon?  I'm sorry, I didn't catch all of that.   what did you say?
EEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Lsherm: Both of my parents are rapidly going deaf, and they are figuring out the hearing aids right now.  The biggest problem they are running into is that the devices amplify all sound on a particularly frequency range, so if they are in a crowded room, they can hear what you are saying, but it's drowned out by what the other 100 people are saying as well.  Hearing aides are also apparently directional, since neither one of my parents can hear shiat if you are shouting at them from behind.

Yes, many hearing aids are directional on purpose, so they only amplify 50 people instead of 100 in that crowded room.

The thing is, there's even more to hearing loss that what the article outlines.  As you pointed out, the hearing aids amplify all the sounds. They don't know the difference between what you want to hear and what you don't...that's your brain's job to decide.  That noise is the same noise that normal-hearing people hear all the time.

Another facet to hearing loss is signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) loss.  A typical normal-hearing person can understand speech that is 2dB louder than the noise.  A hearing-impaired person can't understand in that signal/noise ratio.  They might need the speech to be 8dB louder than to noise to be understandable, or even more.  So even if you properly fit hearing aids, unless you can somehow magically make the signal louder than the background noise, they're still going to have trouble understanding.

That's a hard, if not impossible, thing to do.  It is the responsibility of the hearing aid dispenser to convey this to their patients.  It doesn't always happen.  Yes, there are hearing aids that may reduce the s/n ratio, using directional microphones.  But if they can improve the s/n ratio to 5dB, and the person needs a s/n ratio of 10dB to understand in noise, they're still not going to understand.  All the uninformed hearing-aid wearer knows is "these hearing aids don't work."

It's even more complex than this, I've given entire semester-long courses on this subject.  But hopefully this gives you a little perspective on what hearing aids can do.  Remember, the goal is always to in general hear better with them than without them...not to hear everything or hear normally.  It's just impossible, we're putting this amplified sound into a bad ear.

The "Loss of High Frequencies" one best describes what I hear. It's all muffled, and I'll get probably 60-70% of the sentence if they're looking directly at me, right in front of me, and no one else is speaking. I rely on lip reading to pick up the rest of the conversation.

If I'm in a noisy room I have to rely on lip reading for almost all of what's being said. And by noisy I mean two or three other people talking within 15 feet of me.

/Will not get a hearing aid. I kinda like my quiet world and I don't want to amplify noises like crying babies.

Tinnitus sucks. Keeps me awake at night, and I havent heard "silence" in years. Sometimes I want to cry.

LDM90: Heh, I worked with a lady who got up to answer a phone that wasn't ringing. Can't remember if she needed a hearing aid or had a bad one.

My students always make fun of me because I always think someone is knocking at the door when no one is. I do the same thing with my phone. It's because we know we won't likely hear it when it is, so anything that remotely sounds like a knock, or a ring, we just assume it is and check.

elvisaintdead: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeee
pardon?  I'm sorry, I didn't catch all of that.   what did you say?
EEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I came here to post this.

Zugarific: I can't wait to not have to wear earplugs to sleep,  and to not hear my dog 2 rooms away smacking her lips, or that tv buzz, the rattle in the back of my car, my wife

It's my last day of vacation and my dog decided to sing the song of his people at 6 am. I just rolled over onto my "okay" ear, and had my "can't hear a thing" ear sticking up. The place was silent once again.

Everybody sounds like a Charlie Brown adult to me.
Wa waaa?

Earguy: Lsherm: Both of my parents are rapidly going deaf, and they are figuring out the hearing aids right now.  The biggest problem they are running into is that the devices amplify all sound on a particularly frequency range, so if they are in a crowded room, they can hear what you are saying, but it's drowned out by what the other 100 people are saying as well.  Hearing aides are also apparently directional, since neither one of my parents can hear shiat if you are shouting at them from behind.

Yes, many hearing aids are directional on purpose, so they only amplify 50 people instead of 100 in that crowded room.

The thing is, there's even more to hearing loss that what the article outlines.  As you pointed out, the hearing aids amplify all the sounds. They don't know the difference between what you want to hear and what you don't...that's your brain's job to decide.  That noise is the same noise that normal-hearing people hear all the time.

Another facet to hearing loss is signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) loss.  A typical normal-hearing person can understand speech that is 2dB louder than the noise.  A hearing-impaired person can't understand in that signal/noise ratio.  They might need the speech to be 8dB louder than to noise to be understandable, or even more.  So even if you properly fit hearing aids, unless you can somehow magically make the signal louder than the background noise, they're still going to have trouble understanding.

That's a hard, if not impossible, thing to do.  It is the responsibility of the hearing aid dispenser to convey this to their patients.  It doesn't always happen.  Yes, there are hearing aids that may reduce the s/n ratio, using directional microphones.  But if they can improve the s/n ratio to 5dB, and the person needs a s/n ratio of 10dB to understand in noise, they're still not going to understand.  All the uninformed hearing-aid wearer knows is "these hearing aids don't work."

It's even more complex than this, I've given entire semest ...

You are so right. I'm 50 and have been wearing hearing aids since I was 26. NOTHING replaces natural hearing.

/huh?

I lost 90% of my hearing in one ear after an infection following tubes stuffed in there. I lost 40% in the other after a bout of pnuemonia. I still get dizzy pretty easily but for the most part, decades later I don't notice and most of that hearing has recovered. I learned at an early age to read lips and body language to train my brain to work out what people are saying (to this day I know only some rudimentary sign).

I didn't realize how much I was relying on lip reading until my glasses broke a few weeks ago and I had to go to the store for groceries. I nearly had a panic attack in the produce section.

Being def was all the rage in the early 90s, especially among urban youth and British hair bands.

bborchar: Hack Patooey: Tinnitus sucks. Keeps me awake at night, and I havent heard "silence" in years. Sometimes I want to cry.

Does white noise help at all?  It helped me when I had some tinnitus caused by pain in my TMJ.

White noise, and ocean sounds, actually seem to make it worse. They block out the rest of the outside noise (cars going by, the dogs snuffling in their sleep, fridge kicking on, etc) but then ALL I hear is the tinnitus.

As someone with hearing loss, I'm getting a kick out of this thread.

/oh wait....

Twat?  I coont hear you.

Lettuce sea if that gets filtered.

I have mild hearing loss, in the speech range. So, everything else is absurdly loud but voices are quieter. It sucks. I have to turn up the TV to hear the voices in quiet scenes and then there's an explosion and its deafening. So I end up turning the TV on 'night mode' to compress the audio.

Most voices in conversation I can hear fine but mom is a low talker.

WordyGrrl:

Yep, that's all been my experience, too.

I've not gone a second date with a girl once because she got annoyed that I asked her to repeat something three times. I knew the relationship was never going to work, hah. I tell people to just get used to me asking "What?"

I'm glad the hearing aid is working nicely for you :) I'm sure one day I'll get one if I ever feel like I can't be productive, or if I feel I really need one. But for now, I'll just deal.