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I have a question for you gentlemen concerning hearing loss. How can you determine if it is truly hearing loss or selective spousal hearing loss? I'm not being a smart mouth, I think my husband has hearing loss and he is quite stubborn about getting his hearing tested. My brother has really bad hearing loss (which runs in our family) and refuses to see an audiologist. Why are some men so stubborn about going to see an audiologist? Thank you!

Sassy....

There is a lot of selective hearing going on, particularly with men. I think it is a genetic component

Men are especially stubborn about hearing loss, as they see it (moreso than women) as being a concession to age.

I'm assuming the TV is louder than necessary for most of the family. Take control of the remote (I have a feeling you could do it, Sassy) and you set the volume to where it is audible to you. Be rather persistent and do this a number of times, letting him know that it is quite loud enough as it is where you set it.

Letting him have control of the remote and the volume only lets him wallow in his denial for longer.

I found a site that listed some information on 16 different brands of hearing aids. However, there was no information presented that provided many clues on the performance of any of them. Furthermore, looking at the company addresses it appears that one company has a lot of brands, or several companies are located around Minneapolis, Mn. So how many of these different brands are identical products?
How can we as consumers make good decisions about spending a little more for a better product, when information regarding product performance and pricing is not readily available?

As Bob said (and he is the real expert here) it would be almost futile to "review" hearing aids. Their performance is not only variable depending on your own hearing profile, but the results are completely subjective. There's just no feet per second, ballistic coefficient, standard deviation, group size way to measure "better" hearing. Worse, no hearing aid can actually restore hearing; it can only amplify what little you have left in a given frequency range. So the result can't ever be "back to normal." The best you can get is "not as bad."

Fortunately, the better independent providers (not chain names) can offer you a brand of aid whose circuit is best suited to your individual loss. The talented ones can work with you to tweak that circuit to an optimum point.

Then it's up to you to wear the darn things and let your brain adapt to the new "normal". That's not as easy as you might think. Your brain has spent years making do and supplying what isn't there - or trying to. Your current normal is pretty darn goddawful - but your brain won't let you see that. So the suddenly new hearing supplied by electronics seems worse. Don't laugh, it WILL. That's why so many new and expensive hearing aids go into dresser drawers, never to be heard of again.

Sassy, it works both ways. My own dear wife is a teacher of the deaf, but has absolutely no concept of what tinnitus does to my hearing. She'll be two rooms away, with the door closed, her back turned and the water running - and complain because I didn't hear what she muttered.

The big problem with high frequency is that is where most our hearing aid wearers losses are at. If you can't hear that frequency unless the aid changes it to another frequency you're not going to hear it no matter how loud it makes it. I have the Costco Resound vivid ($2700+) units and they work very well for me. But one thing I'll tell you is the tech that programs them make all the difference in the world. One of their techs just couldn't get them to work for me. I had the same problem with my last aids Phonak the tech could never get them right. The factory rep got them working then they had a problem and they had to be sent to the factory. They lost the program and my dealer wouldn't call the rep back to get them right. At Costco the receptionist suggested I switch to another tech. Wow now my hearing is very good where before I was struggling. Lots of pieces to this little puzzle and they all have to click for the best results.

There ya go.

Ackley I agree with you about the differences in techs. I've already been to a second Costco store and tech looking for improvement, but got little, if any. Part of the issue is that the closest Costco is 100 miles away and I've been back there twelve times for repairs or adjustments in a year. I've also been waiting over six months for the Costco tech to arrange a meeting with the factory rep for adjustments. The last two days I've been using my old analog aids and can understand speech better with them.....when I don't have feedback.

Yes, one can spend a great deal of money and still not hear as well as possible (and, as Rocky said, nothing can duplicate our "original equipment"). In the end, so much does depend on the quality of the practioner.

Over the years I've had people in my offices that spent in the neighborhood of $7000 for a set of hearing aids. When I verified the aids' actual acoustic performance based on the audiogram I found that the aids were not programmed correctly. These people could have done almost as well with a set of older, analog hearing aids at a fraction of the price.

The immensely greater potential of digital hearing aids over older (and less expensive) analog technology gives more opportunity for error, or sloth, on the part of the practitioner. Poor practioner, poor results...regardless of the money spent.

But still, some digital aids have more "potential" than others. It is almost impossible for the lay person to understand what is involved.

Try Costco.
As previously mentioned.