Old-diver ears, been putting off getting a hearing aid?

[nolatom]

According to DAN, the most common dive injury not DCI or embolism, it's barotrauma--ear injury:

Common Ear Injuries While Diving — DAN | Divers Alert Network — Medical Dive Article

I really don't know if I have injured my ears diving, or maybe in boatyard/shipyard noise, or getting close enough to see the rock musicians actually make the music (otherwise it's just radio, right? wink wink) but over the years my hearing has gotten worse, Every five years when I have to renew my little captain's license, the hearing test rats me out to myself--tinnitus and high-frequency sound loss.

I didn't want to think about it, but it seemed that cupping my hand over an ear, and having to see the speaker's lips move in order to make out the consonants (I was good with vowels) probably made me look more like an "old guy" than a hearing aid would. My GP doc said she wasn't a big fan of hearing aids, but if I could find one, go ahead and let her know how I liked it. She did not recommend going to an audiologist, since I had the recent hearing exam for my license renewal.

My excuse was the cost, several thousand dollars from what I'd heard. Could I get one free from the VA?? Yeah, right, maybe after a few years' wait. Then a friend told me about a mail-order one her dad got, so I googled that company and they had a nice digital one for $350. Why not?? It's been excellent, has volume control and a couple of settings to dim out low-frequency background noise. Speech is much "crisper" now and I can hear speech without seeing the lips making it.

I told my Doc, and she said she had been reading up on the apparent link between hearing loss and cognitive brain deterioration ("use it or lose it", in a way), and was now tending toward being more pro-hearing aid for a typical mid-60s hearing loss patient like me. Sample blurb here: Mild hearing loss affecting your brain | A&A Hearing Group of Maryland

I'm not trying to push any particular brand, but there are some good ones out there for about a tenth of what folks have been paying for years. I haven't tried one of those, but I'm a fan of my cheapie. Go digital, not analog (the $200) ones are analog, so you have the volume and background noise controls.

Then keep on diving!!

PS: If there's any doubt that you might have hearing issues beyond just the typical old-age stuff, see an ear doctor, I'm not trying to say otherwise.


PPS: Don't leave it where the dog can chew it up, and don't go swimming in the ocean with it, I have done both. ;-)

 

[iamrushman]

thanks for sharing the info....

 

[Chuckitall]

Hey Tom, my hearing sucks, Guns, explosions, jet engine noise, and I believe with 300 dives a year at my ages contributing to my hearing problems. Got very nice Aids from VA, but don’t use them enough for my wife. I still hear everything, but I can’t understand conversations. Been using closed caption for a couple of years. It happens, but I’ve known for 20 years that I am losing my hearing.

 

[billt4sf]

Just turned 65. Been thinking about hearing loss. Read some articles and realized I probably didn't have much more than the normal-for-my-age loss (that's the good news). Also realized that the problems I was having (cannot distinguish conversations if there is background noise) cannot be solved with hearing aids because (bad news on the way) it's an ageing-brain issue.

Either way, it sux. Either way, thanks for posting.

- Bill

 

[tridacna]

Which ones are the $350 devices. Link?

 

[Scuba-Blue-13]

PPS: Don't leave it where the dog can chew it up, and don't go swimming in the ocean with it, I have done both. ;-)

And be careful when answering the telephone - feedback noise is REALLY loud!

 

[RyanT]

To the OP: ear barotrauma from diving could certainly be a culprit, but I'd be willing to bet you're experiencing typical age-related, noise-induced hearing loss. We're all told not listen to our music too loud, etc., but we now live in a noisy world. Recent studies have shown that just daily exposure to traffic noise, boat engines, etc. will damage the inner-ear hair cells and result in hearing loss. As we age, we also experience a loss in the flexibility of the ear drum, which further contributes to the problem. One of the classic problems with hearing aids is that they amplify all sounds. When you have a hearing deficit, not only is your overall hearing compromised, but you also have trouble deciphering specific signals (e.g. speech) amid background noise. So amplifying all sounds often does not improve a person's ability to perceive speech from the person they are talking to. The newest hearing aid technology has improved this a bit by being able selectively amplify certain frequencies and diminishing others. We have a long way to go with hearing aids, but they are indeed getting better.

Now for the interesting part....We think of speech perception as strictly an auditory thing. The reality is that speech intelligibility is intricately linked to vision (e.g. lip reading). We all lip read. Most of the time we don't notice it until we start to develop hearing deficits. There's an old saying, "I can't hear you because I don't have my glasses on" This is related to the overall cognitive function your doctor eluded to. In short, hearing is not an independent cognitive function, instead, your ability to hear is strongly linked to vision and probably other cognitive functions such as memory. But you don't have to take my word for it, check out this video.


So, living in our noisy world will exacerbate hearing loss for all us, but inner ear barotrauma can obviously make the problem much worse. So it's kind of like voting in a particular election, "equalize early and often."

 

[nolatom]

Which ones are the $350 devices. Link?

this is the $350 one I got:
https://www.mdhearingaid.com/shop/m...esvaid=50109&gclid=CLnP2IHWvM4CFQ-EaQodTk0O2Q

 

[Louma]

I will endorse the above MD AIDS. You will need 2 one for each ear. Only problem I have is they "eat" batteries. Buy a bunch od #13's.

 

[Nemrod]

What did you say?

N