My Hearing Aid Journey Is Over

So, my hearing aid journey is over.

It didn’t work out.

Despite being so optimistic these CICs would work and being prepared to get used to them even if they were annoying at first, they just didn’t fit.

My ear canals are too small.

This is precisely the “wad of silly putty” look that I did NOT want. 

(That whole thing was supposed to fit INSIDE my ear and be invisible!!)

Aesthetically, of course, they were a “Yuck, no,” but they didn’t work functionally, either. They were so big they would have popped out during my first Downdog.

But the good news is I now don’t have to worry about or futz with Starkey’s allegedly spotty Bluetooth problem.

Also: I’m not out $6K.

And, since my current level of hearing loss is pegged at “mild to moderate,” it’s not that I’m missing much.

Yeah, I need the TV louder than G does, but I don’t need it blasting. 

I don’t need to lip-read. I can hear people fine even when they’re wearing a mask.

So at the end of the day, in consultation with my audiologist, I decided to wait out the technology. 

The way miniaturization is progressing in electronics and computers, it might just be a few more years before hearing aids take a quantum leap from where they are now.

At least that’s what I’m hoping. We’ll see.

 I don’t even regret all the appointments and the time I took doing this. The whole adventure was really quite interesting. 

For one thing, I now know exactly what a clarity boost in my hearing sounds like now, and I know I like it. A lot.

If they would have worked out both aesthetically and functionally, they would have been spectacular, and worth every dime.

If you have nice big spacious ears, and you think you need hearing augmentation, I’d definitely go for it! I would have loved it if this had worked out for me.

I also give myself a big gold star for getting over my stupid vanity about needing hearing aids. It’s ridiculous.  If you need them, you need them, end of story. 

As an example.

I run into this guy and his dog every day on the bike trail. We stop, our dogs sniff each other’s butts, and we have a little convo about nothing. But I know he doesn’t hear half of what I say to him. 

“How’re your dahlias doing? I shout at him from three feet away

Instead of telling me about his flowers, he just smiles and laughs like I just told him a joke or something. 

This is no way to operate. We’re not connecting. He’s pretending he can hear me, and that leaves me not knowing what to do, or say next, so I just wave and move on. There was a missed opportunity for genuine connection.

I am also glad I went to a hospital’s audiology department for my care, instead of a place like Miracle-Ear. By using a hospital, I wasn’t limited to any one company’s hearing aids. 

 I started with a company called Phonak. 

Then, because I wanted the fancy CICs with Bluetooth, we went with Starkey. 

I could have just as well tried Oticon, or ReSound, or any hearing aid company out there with the right product for my unique needs. The hospital didn’t have any special affiliate deals with any one company. I liked that.

So now I go back to using my After-Shokz for all my media listening and hands-free phone calls. And that’s fine. But I now have an ear to the ground for the latest developments in the hearing aid industry.

Onward.