The People's Forum: I've done the same tests…

With the same outcome, mild mild hearing loss. I was certainly struggling with softer sounds in conversation or on television Hearing aids are hugely improved in terms of design quality and un0btrusiveness, but they are hugely expensive. e I read about the Apple option recently and would have certainly tried them out, but I'd already bought Opticon and yes, it set me back near enough £3000. Hearing aids are a bit like glasses – once you've worn them, it's hard to go back even though strictly speaking, you don't need them all the time. Having said that, I really don't notice they are in other than the odd bit of itchiness.

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At 62 after many years of listening to loud music (and occasionally making loud music) I’ve lost a lot of high frequency hearing. However, I’m technically diagnosed as having mild hearing loss. Because of the loss of the higher frequencies it means my difficulty is hearing conversation when there is other ambient noise around me. You know, you go a social function, lot of background chatter going on etc and I’m having to try reading lips or smiling and nodding but not hearing the actual words.

So, I started to investigate hearing aids, did 3 tests with BlackBerry, Hidden Hearing and Specsavers (really!). All results showed the same graphic evidence of the hearing loss. Then I was told the prices :O.

If you want really good hearing aids the pricing is between €3k and upwards (this includes application of a government ‘grant’ of €1k). The ones that worked best for me in tests were to cost me €4K+.

Anyways! Here’s something that I found out after I upgraded my old Apple AirPods to the Pro version. There is a hearing aid function in them! And it works! Same principle, amplification of sound directly to the ear etc. The other half went upstairs and spoke to me out of sight and I heard every word.

Now, no-one wants to be walking around with AirPods in all the time etc but I’ve been using them while watching tv, (I was in that group who need to have subtitles on without turning the volume up to 60 - again, tv speech also falls into those missing frequencies).

I just want to put it out there that if you have the occasional need to wear a hearing aid this might be a temporary or intermediary solution that doesn’t cost thousands