r/hardofhearing

For those who received their diagnosis as adults, how did you survive before diagnosis?

Hi,

I am trying to buy a hearing aid for my father with severe hearing loss and my final choice at Costco is Either Philips Hearlink 9050 or Rexton reach. Which one do you think has better sound quality and durability / reliability ?

For some uncommon knowledge Philip Hearlink 9050 is almost the same as outside Costco as Oticon intent 1. Rexton Reach is almost same as outside Costco as Signia Pure Charge&Go IX

Thanks

Not talking about major problems — just small everyday things.

For me it's when someone starts talking from another room and somehow expects me to understand everything.

I've been using CHOSGO hearing aids and it made me start paying attention to all these little moments.

What's yours?

[Translated and summarized by ChatGPT for clarity]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone here has had a similar experience because I'm running out of explanations.

I'm 30 years old and have had severe hearing loss since childhood (probably congenital). I wore hearing aids for years and, until my early 20s, I had a normal social life with few communication problems.

Over the years, though, I've found it increasingly difficult to follow conversations in noisy environments or groups, even though repeated hearing tests have shown little to no decline in my hearing. During COVID, I received a cochlear implant because masks made communication impossible at work (I was working in a hospital). It significantly improved my hearing overall, but I still struggle badly in noisy or group settings, and it feels like it's getting worse every year.

I've brought this up with my audiologists several times. My speech-in-noise test results are actually excellent and don't match my real-life experience. They even replaced my implant in case it was a technical issue, but nothing changed. Objectively, my hearing isn't much different from when I was in high school, when I didn't have these problems.

A few possible explanations I've considered:

• I was diagnosed with ADHD and wonder whether attention plays a role.
• A psychiatrist also suspected autism, although I never pursued a formal diagnosis. That could explain noise sensitivity, social overload, and the cognitive effort required to communicate.
• Oddly, I've noticed that LSD temporarily made it much easier for me to understand speech, and I also think my hearing felt better while I was taking antidepressants. This makes me wonder whether anxiety and cognitive processing, rather than hearing itself, are part of the problem.

Has anyone experienced something similar or found an explanation? I'm especially interested in whether this could be related to auditory processing, ADHD, autism, anxiety, or something else.

I'm looking for some advice on what headphones you all suggest for hearing aids that go BTE, but for someone who also wears glasses.

I deal with sensitivity to things pressing against my temple, so the cup headphones may not be the best idea. I'd like to still be able to wear my hearing aids with the headphones, too.

Yes, my current hearing aids have Bluetooth, but the sound quality for certain things aren't the greatest, volume wise.

On July 1, Virginia's new law for open captions (on-screen subtitles) went into effect. The law requires all Virginia theaters with five or more locations (meaning AMC, Regal, Cinemark, and Alamo Drafthouse) to offer limited regular open caption screenings. Now hard of hearing people in Virginia have two options for seeing movies at those theaters: the ADA-mandated closed caption devices or open captions. Plus, theaters with less than five locations have to offer an open caption screening within eight days of receiving a request.

Edit: we hope a reporter will see this and decide this new law is worth writing about. There has been no media coverage.

https://preview.redd.it/n2hn8d47t7bh1.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=11b646ecb7367f88bfedaf8d8070c21395fcd607

My ears started bothering me at 18 and the hearing loss / issues gotten worse over time. Feels like a constant and consistent throbbing/ pain inside my ears most of the time at 24. Also missing questions from customers in my customer service job. Don’t get into the audiologist till August. Guess I’m just frustrated?

What kinda stuff should I expect for my first audiologist appointment?

Hi, I’m 21 years old and I was born with single-sided deafness. I’m about 60-75% deaf in my right ear, and fully hearing in my left. I personally feel like my left ear is more deaf than diagnosed, I could lose the ear and I don’t feel like my hearing would change.

I’m writing this because a couple days ago, an older coworker mocked me after I asked him to speak up multiple times because we were in a loud environment and he was speaking quiet. I explained that I was deaf in an ear and he accused me of lying because “you’re too young to have hearing issues”. We were with another coworker and he leaned over and said “she can’t hear” in a mocking tone. I already told my manager, but I’m just really bothered by it. I’m already exhausted from the challenges of hearing. It just really bugged me. I feel like a freak

Edit: Correcting info on which ear is which

Mine: "What?" isn't the most frustrating thing people say to me. It's when people say "never mind." Curious what everyone else's is.

My son is five and autistic and has a little bit of a speech delay. I have a really hard time hearing him in the backseat when I’m driving being a parent with a single side of deafness this is a really big issue for us especially on road trips does anybody have any recommendations on some kind of microphone speaker that I can put on his car seat and the speaker I can keep upfront so I can hear him

Curious how y'all deal with this situation — like when someone seems off or potentially dangerous but you can't totally make out what they're saying. Could be someone who looks like throwing racists slurs/comments at you, or some unhinged or person with mental illness on the street yelling in your direction.

Normally I'd just pull up my phone and use speech-to-text to catch what someone's saying, but obviously that's not really an option here lol. What do you do?

I'm 32M struggling with premature hearing loss. Last year I became homeless, on top of ongoing stress from my half siblings spreading lies about me. I did some audiograms. My hearing dropped across all ranges, but the high frequencies were hit hardest. I struggle with sleep every night, and my body has been in fight or flight mode since then. I'm hopeful that if I can de-stress somehow then my hearing might come back. I also experience symptoms of hyperacusis where some sounds (like car horns) are especially loud drowning out others. Everything sounds muffled with any background noise, but I can hear people much easier if it's one-on-one conversation. I'm not totally sure how to differentiate between ear fullness and deafness.

Has anyone else had stress-related hearing loss? And if so, what have you tried to fix it?

Any advice is welcome.

Hi, I (F 24) struggle with my hearing very much and wanted to hear from other HOH people to see if anyone relates or might know what my issue is. I will see a specialist (again) when I can, but in the meantime I want to hear from other people and see what everyone has to say. So, I didn’t seem to notice this issue till about the age of 18. As far as I know, I have had no injuries that could have impacted my hearing except for some cases of wax impaction in my ear canals around that time frame. I have been told my ear canals are smaller than average as well. But, I keep my ears clean and check them regularly for buildup and haven’t had issues since. I can hear most things, I think? But only in ideal settings: quiet rooms with no background noise and I have to be directly in front of the person or thing I am listening to. If there is background noise, for example, multiple people talking and moving in a public space or even just the crunch of footsteps on a hike I cannot, as hard as I try, hear what people are saying. I hear the sound of their voice but it is extremely muffled by whatever din is going on in the background. Unless I hold my ear close to whatever/whoever I am listening to, noises completely drown out the people talking to me. Which as I’m sure you can imagine is not ideal for trying to have a conversation while keeping an appropriate amount of personal space lol. Additionally, as soon as they are no longer facing my direction, for example if they walk maybe a foot ahead of me or turn their head away as they are speaking, I cannot hear them. My friends and family had eventually become well aware of this, and urged me to see a doctor. When I finally got a general test done everyone, myself included, was shocked to find that I actually performed better than average. My specialist was surprised as well but surmised that my issue might be a software issue and not a hardware issue if that makes sense haha. It was one of those tests where you sit in a box with headphones on while someone talks to you through a mic. So, I’ve thought about the fact that maybe the test wasn’t an accurate test for my exact issue since my issue usually occurs when there are multiple sounds going on at once and when the source of sound is not close enough/facing me directly. I also wonder if it could be related to neurodivergence which does run in my family, though I am not officially diagnosed with anything. It’s been about 2 years since then and for a multitude of reasons I haven’t been able to go back until maybe now in the near future. But, I’m open to answering further questions and would love to hear if anyone else struggles with similar types of HOH and knows what might be going on.

I got some certificates in administration assistant, both Level 1 and Level 2 from local college, but recently I joined this new deaf employment job agency GLAD EDD, my job coach told me it’s kinda tricky, cuz it’s not a popular common jobs, since techs took over lately. Also, since I’m hard of hearing, worried about using the phone part, because I don’t hear well sometime, or hearing people don’t understand my voice well. I do work at a retail store part time, but I do avoid phone parts. Same thing volunteering at animal shelter, I avoid the phone as well too! I guess it’s good that I got these skills, but for jobs it would be hard to find one would accommodate me well. I know there’s VP, Subtitles Closed Captions, and others accessible things for us deaf/ hoh people, beside I guess office related jobs has changed a lot since years ago

Been in civil construction for 12 years now, was pretty dumb as a laborer, because I was a laborer so of course I was (demo saw, jackhammer, air compressors oh my). Anyways, 32 now have tinnitus in both ears, one ear worse off than the other, now I'm wearing ear plugs even when I'm running the excavator, is it helping now? Unlikely, makes me feel like it might tho..

Don't he a fool, wrap your tool.. or whatever

I’ll go first.
I work in a corporate company where the hiring team didn’t see my hearing condition as a major barrier to performing my job, and I’m genuinely grateful for that opportunity.

My role does require communication from time to time, but I try to use text messages whenever possible. For online meetings, I rely on live captions. For face-to-face meetings, I bring my smart glasses with me for additional support.

That said, I’ve always wondered what other possibilities are out there beyond corporate jobs. I’m intentionally looking for side hustles or additional sources of income to help navigate the current economy and build more financial security.
I’d love to hear what other hard of hearing or deaf people do for work, whether it’s your main career, freelance work, business, or side hustle.

p/s: i am profoundly deaf in both ear btw.