Clicks and Clacks . . .

I am getting used to the new hearing aids.  I hear the change in my pockets, the jangling of keys, rubbing of my hands across the steering wheel of the car and it goes on and on.  I was missing all that, well noise.  Not so sure it was a bad thing.  Running water is loud as is crushing a plastic water bottle.  Sometimes it can be very disconcerting.

These tiny devices are certainly more sensitive than can be imagined.  They are tuned so to speak.  For instance in a car, they will recognize more sound is coming from the interior rather than the exterior of the car, and emphasizes the interior sounds or conversely deemphasize the outside sounds.  Judie was tapping her fingers on the car door rest in the right seat and I could hear that very clearly while driving with the radio playing. 

These tiny devices have programs that do small things for you.  The concentrate the sound in front of you.  Each hearing aid has two microphones and can do a comparative analysis and the programs take over.  Thus if you point your head at the TV set is does a good job of collecting the sound.  Right now as I type, the den TV is on and it is located on my right side and it is emphasizing the right side.

The can also suppress wind sounds, a typical irritant to hearing aid users.  It also suppresses feed back signals so one does not get squeals in the ear as occurred in past hearing aids.

These  are so programmed for high pitched sound, the area that my hearing is deficient; it does not amplify low pitched sounds, sounds at or below 2,500 to 3,000 cycles.  Anything above that frequency starts falling off rapidly so that by the time 5,000 to 6,000 cycles are reached there is a serious loss of sensitivity.  Of course, beyond 6,000 or so cycles was missing all together.  These hearing aids fill in those areas while they do not change the sensitivity of sounds below those numbers.  So normal discussion in a fairly quite situation is about the same.

Right now they are not set up to depress the Tinnitus and I can hearing it ringing away.  It is only when I am in a very noisy situation that the Tinnitus disappears.  It is there, it is just overridden by the other income sounds.  I am told "white noise" can be programmed in and it overrides the Tinnitus.  In time your ear learns to ignore both the Tinnitus and the white noise.

My right ear is still more sensitive to the presence of the sound receiver in the ear.  So it is sometimes bothersome to me.  I push on it and it seems to change a bit and seems to go away for a while.  Sort of like pushing up your glasses every once in a while.  I am sure I will get used to it.

 Just another getting old thing.