Hard of hearing OH

My husband started to go deaf soon after we married in 1946.. He was diagnosed with Ménière's disease and was told a hearing aid wouldn't help. However after going to the Royal Institute for the deaf found the old cumbersome NHS aid worked. His hearing gradually deteriorated and by the time he died in 1987 he was completely deaf. We believed the cause was the fact that his Bren gun carrier was blown up during the Normandy landings. He didn't live long enough to experience digital aids or subtitles on TV. We learned to live with it and he was a very cheerful person always joking. Said we could never have a row because he would turn his aid off. could only converse one to one hopeless in a crowd.
I am borderline according to the NHS. Went to Specsavers but didn't like the attitude of the lady examiner who because of my age treated me as if I was mentally defective. The aids are very expensive but I manage without. My son has a aid because he is a musician and cannot hear certain notes and he advises me not to bother as long as I can get by.

I bought some good quality earphones for Xmas the year before last for my DH. They work like a dream when we are watching TV or listening to the radio. He can adjust to his own level and I can keep the TV at a suitable level. They are wifi so he can even sit outside and still listen to the cricket. I sometimes still have to shout to get his attention but I did that anyway!

I've been diagnosed with partial hearing loss.and have an NHS hearing aid which works well even when in business meetings with lots of people around a table BUT there are still people I can't hear. These are the ones who don't open their mouths when speaking. Bad enough when they're standing in front of me and impossible when speaking over the phone. And people who go off into another room and then mutter.
It is easier when people start by saying my name to alert me that they're speaking to me - I may well be concentrating on something else. Some people are really irritated when I ask them to repeat something but I explain my problem and hope they'll cooperate.
At a recent eye test, when the aid would have got in the way, the optician mostly looked away from me and spoke very quietly, despite being asked to speak more clearly. Frustrating for both of us. I asked him about those very tiny aids advertised on the TV. He said the model must have very large ears!
Aids do need looking after and are not always easy to insert which makes me wonder how people with dementia cope, especially after reading the reports of how hearing loss exacerbates the progress of dementia.

DH is getting slightly deaf but won't admit it - I ,and everyone on television , mumbles (s). I met someone at a party who showed me his hearing aids ( oh the glamour, not what used to happen at parties) and said they had improved his quality of life by 50 percent. Another friend finds them so unobtrusive that he has lost a couple down the shower drain, forgetting to take them out. so they can be very successful.

I so empathize with others who have a spouse with hearing problems. Apart from the frustration of having to repeat everything, there is the gradual loss of the opportunity to just chat when communication dwindles to just statements. I go everywhere with my OH as his ears. He is a naturally polite guy who will just say 'yes' to everyone regardless of whether he's heard or not and I have to warn nurses when he is hospitalised that this is the case.
I can recommend a book, Deaf Sentence.

I have just had a long hearing test at Specsavers and was told I need hearing aids in both ears. My D.H. and both my children tell me that my hearing is fine. I also don't feel that I miss any conversations.
Do you think they tell you that you need them,earlier than necessary in order to sell expensive ones ?Or am I being an ostrich and burying my head in the sand? How do you know what you are missing if you can't tell?

This is the first time that I have ever posted a message here but this is a topic close to my heart. I, too, have lost the high pitched sounds and can find it difficult to pick up conversations when there is a lot of background noise. However, I have also always been sensitive to loud noises, which is called hyperacusis (I now have to wear ear plugs at my Zumba class because I find the volume of the music intolerable and as for the Chris Rea concert I went to a few years ago.....ouch!!). When I had my ears tested I was told that I would not be suitable for a hearing aid (which might fix my inability to hear conversations etc) because all they do is magnify the sound and I would find the even louder "loud" noises intolerable. I am not aware that everyone is tested for hyperacusis when they are provided with hearing aids and, hence, it is quite possible that some of those people who appear to be uncooperative with hearing aids, may in fact, have been unsuitable in the first place.

My DH has the NHS free ones. If he loses one they charge him £50 for a replacement which is fair enough. They have to be 'managed' by which I mean
he has to tweak them depending on his surroundings and the level of noise.
As I said, they have made life easier. You can see them (they just fit on the
back of his ears) but he doesn't care. I think for women who usually wear
their hair longer you wouldn't see them. My two elderly neighbours are both deaf and have bought their aids privately which cost them a fortune but they
never put them in and having a conversation with them is nigh on impossible.

So I am not alone...... My husband has NHS aids but won't wear them as they kept falling out . I think it's the arrogance that gets me ,that he can hear quite well if people speak clearly. So I end up talking too loudly to other people which is embarrassing.
NHS hearing aids are free.

My father used to turn his hearing aids off to avoid the noisy world we live in! He said he had too much background noise,.....smile

Hello all.. Can anyone tell me what the NHS hearing aids look like and the cost of them ?
Thanks in advance

I just wish I could find some hearing aids which truly worked. I'm forever changing channels or taking one of them out. Sadly mine is not just a simple hearing loss. My partner only has one working ear, so at least we understand each other's difficulty. The world has become a very noisy place. Is it really necessary to have loud music in shops, lifts, restaurants etc? I'm sure audiologists will become even more busy in years to come. By the way, we solved the tv dilemma by resorting to subtitles. And yes morethan2 being able to turn them off is a silver lining. There surely needs to be one!

I remember the day I swapped a single analogue aid for two digital aids. Walking out of the hospital I could hear a strange noise. I kept stopping and looking round to see what it was, but couldn't identify anything. Then it clicked, I was walking quite quickly and it was the sound of the air rushing past. Felt a right fool but it did make me chuckle.

Would anyone recommend a hearing test via Specsavers, and does anyone know what the charge is please? I know my hearing isn't what it used to be....

Oh dear, all this is really not sounding good - no pun intended - because we haven't got that far along this road just yet.
I can see we are going to have to try hard to keep our sense of humour intact. I was just thinking how fortunate that DH and I have been together a very long time and often don't need to say anything as a look is usually sufficient but then realised that you need the hearing to know that there is something to smile about.

I remember my dad saying 'I never go anywhere without my hearing aids!'
'Where are they?' I asked him.
'In my pocket of course!'

Well, typical man MamaCaz. I would prefer not to hear the pigeons, though.

Printmiss: Your mentioning birdsong reminded me of when DH got hearing aids (which he gave up on after less than a week, saying that they just made the mumbling louder!). As he walked out of the hospital wearing his newly-fitted aids, the first thing he noticed was the birdsong, but his reaction was along the lines of "what a bloody racket those birds are making!"

My DP's hearing has been bad since he was younger and was injured in an explosion while attending a fire. I've recently developed tinnitus and my hearing is starting to deteriorate. Two things frustrate me: one is shopping, we both struggle to hear each other in supermarkets, and of course I am usually looking at the shelves and away from him so he can't read my lips, so we are constantly repeating things to each other, (while I try to remember what I've come in for!). The other is having the radio or music on during the day. He finds a background noise very annoying and I'm always turning things down to repeat things to him, so we end up spending most of the day in silence. That's a real shame because we are both great music lovers.

I will never be able to hear the birds sing - haven't been able to do that for years, and I strongly suspect that I was slightly deaf as a child - had measles. I can't hear the conversation taking place on the radio, and unless I can see someone's lips moving I am rather at a loss. Can't remember whether I have told this before on here, but when I went for a hearing loss check up, the young lady put me in a chair facing the wall, with earphones on and asked me to press the button on the buzzer she gave me every time I heard a noise. After several minutes, she removed the headphones and reminded me of her instructions - to which I replied, "Yes, I do understand, and when I hear something I will press the button".

Agreeing and sympathising with so many of the posts above. Both DH and I are suffering from deafness. It does lead to a lot of frustration and irritation. I hated admitting that I needed hearing aids and keep my hair bushy around the ears to hide them. Unlike glasses it seemed like a real admission of old age. However I have to admit that they work very well. I don't believe you need to spend on private ones. I have NHS ones and they have become very sophisticated in recent years. I had my first ones about 5 years ago, since then new models have come in which are even better. I now cope pretty well both with noisy places and friends with very quiet voices. To work well they do need looking after and cleaning carefully and your ears and the aids must be kept free of wax. Perhaps we all need to talk about it more to reduce the stigma?

IT depends on the type of hearing loss and the levels of sound that are 'missing'. Hearing aids for some individuals produce excruciating noises which make situations worse, particularly in large social groups. tHe coping mechanism of not wearing them makes those who are not aurally challenged cross and often judgemental.

No, I don't think there is, cornergran.

What makes things even harder is that a little bit of me suspects that hearing loss might only be part of the problem. I often tell DH about, for example, my grandchild-care plans / responsibilities for the next day (which affects him as, amongst other things, we have to juggle use of the car around it), but by the next morning it's often as if the conversation never took place and I have to repeat it all over again, sometimes several times.
On the other hand, he doesn't seem to forget things that interest him, so maybe that's just a matter of selective hearing / memory.

Whatever the problem, I've realized that I need to work a lot harder on my patience. There have been several times recently when I've heard the frustration in my own voice, and I really didn't like what I heard. I don't want to become that person.

I can empathise with all you say MamaC. You could be describing my experience. Hearing loss can isolate not only the individual with the loss but also the person closest to them. We have talked about it and it has helped a bit, but the reality is still there. No easy answer is there?

I'm not alone then.

Do any of you feel lonely as a result of this hearing loss? I know I do, and it's more than likely that DH does too, though we've never discussed it.

It's become a complete waste of time for me to make any spontaneous remark, as by the time I've repeated my words enough times for DH to understand, whatever it was that I wanted him to look at or listen to is long gone, and I (DH too, probably) feel so frustrated that I could scream.
In public, we can no longer discuss anything that we might not want other people to hear, so things such as whispered secrets or shared amusement about something or something around us are gone from our lives, and have left a big empty space. There have been times recently when, despite being right next to DH, I have felt so alone that I could cry.