Healthy Hearing

Is it OK if I Leave Now?

Katherine Bouton Healthy Hearing

Whether or not you are open about your hearing loss, there often comes a point at which you just can’t try to listen anymore.

group of people gathering inside bar
Photo by Evonics on Pexels.com

I’m very open about my hearing loss. At this point, in fact, my hearing loss practically defines me, since I write and speak about it. The other night at a dinner party in a restaurant, the woman sitting next to me said she’d heard I was some kind of disability guru. A slight distortion but I like it.

There were seven of us at dinner, the others were in couples, I was on my own and knew only the hosts. They had told me in advance who would be there, so I didn’t have to struggle with names. The specials were on a blackboard, so I knew what I was ordering. The restaurant was reasonably quiet. So far so good.

The woman on my right was a well-known feminist scholar and I was slightly intimidated. But she was funny and friendly and very interesting. She was on my good side so I heard her her well.

After a while it seemed only polite to turn to the people on our other sides. On my left, my bad ear, was a man who was also hard of hearing. His bad ear was facing my bad ear. By twisting and leaning in and trying not to fall into my dinner plate, I caught enough for a reasonably coherent discussion.

Towards the end of dinner, over dessert and coffee, the conversation got more general, and apparently more hilarious, as everyone was laughing. It’s fun to watch people laugh – at least for a while. As it got funnier and funnier. I got more and more tired and stressed.

Under other circumstances- – with closer friends, if I were not a guest – I might have excused myself. But I didn’t know these people well and everyone had been very generous in acknowledging my hearing loss and speaking clearly. Now they were just enjoying themselves, and it seemed wrong to interrupt and ask that I be included. In fact, at that point there was probably no way I could have been included as the restaurant had gotten busy and loud.

The alternative was to excuse myself and leave. But I knew that would break up the conversation and probably end the evening. So I didn’t. Instead I relied on that old standby – faking it. I think it was the right decision.

What would you have done?

 

For more about hearing health, my book “Smart Hearing.” will tell you everything I know about hearing loss, hearing aids, and hearing health. Smart Hearing_Cover_highres

You can get it online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, in paperback or ebook for Kindle or Nook. You can also ask your library or favorite independent bookstore to order it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holiday Gifts for the HOH

Katherine Bouton Healthy Hearing

What’s an HOH? The acronym (pronounced ‘ho’) stands for Head of Household, House of Hades, Head Over Heels …. And Hard of Hearing.

This highly subjective list is for your favorite HOH, last definition. The books are some of my favorites, personal endorsements. The technology is randomly chosen. You may find a better or cheaper brand. Please share in the Comments section.

I’m not going to write about hearing aids, hearing assistive devices or PSAP’s (Personal Sound Amplification Products). Not that they aren’t great gifts: I know a man who gave his sister the hearing aids she couldn’t afford after he landed a new high-paying job.

Books

Here are some of my favorites, shamelessly starting with my own.

*Smart Hearing: Strategies, Skills and Resources for Living Better with Hearing Loss (2018). A primer for veterans of hearing loss as well as newbies – and for anyone who lives, loves or works with someone with hearing loss.

*Shouting Won’t Help (2013).  Yup, also by me. A memoir of losing my hearing and — for a while, my sanity — as I tried to adjust to my new self. I did eventually find my way to acceptance, and I share that journey.

*Gael Hannan’s funny and wise The Way I Hear It (2018) is, like my books, a combination of memoir and advice from someone who’s been there.

*Deaf Sentence, (2009). David Lodge’s classic and hilarious portrait of a clueless professor of linguistics coming to terms with aging via his hearing loss.

*El Deafo (2014). Cece Bell’s graphic novel/memoir about a young girl with a great big hearing aid is meant for kids, but this adult loved it.

[These links are to Amazon but you can buy any of them — in paperback, e-book and in some cases other formats – at B&N.com or by asking your local bookstore to order them.]

 

Household Technology

*A sunrise alarm clock. There are lots of versions of this clock, which allows you to wake up to simulated sunrise (or a classic alarm). Wirecutter recommends the Philips Wake-Up Light HF 3520.

*TV Ears, an alternative to turning the set up to a volume that your next-door neighbor can hear. Williams Sound and Amazon both offer a variety of brands.

*A wireless strobe-light door chime. One of the more frustrating things about hearing loss is not being able to hear the doorbell. There are lots of brands, prices, and places to buy them.

*An ASL wall clock. Learn how to sign the numbers as well as what time it is. Available at Café Press as well as other retailers. 51CrF+bHS6L._SL500_

 

Protect Your Hearing

*Musicians earplugs. These allow you to hear what you want to while dampening loud sounds. Available at a wide range of prices, for professional musicians and anyone who loves music. Even if you don’t think it’s loud, it is.

*Noise-canceling earmuffs. Buy the kind made for yard work. They’re much cheaper than the $300 Bose, which is also excellent. Wear them to the stadium and they’ll protect your hearing and keep your ears warm.

 

Personal amplifiers.

*Bose Hearphones. These are $499, but people who use them say they are worth the price. Bose recommends them for “enhancing conversation.” Available at Bose, Best Buy and many other retailers.

*A Pocketalker. A simple and low-cost device for one-on-one conversation with someone with hearing loss. PocketTalker is the Williams Sound brand. Others are available.

Do something good for your favorite HOH and for HOH’s everywhere.

*HLAA Membership. Give your loved one a membership in the Hearing Loss Association of America, or make a donation in their name. You’ll be helping support HLAA’s mission of “information, education, support, and advocacy,” and introducing them to a world of people with hearing loss. “Hearing Life” magazine is a bi-monthly bonus.

 

Readers, what are your suggestions for HOH gifts you’d like to give or get?

 

For more about hearing health, my book “Smart Hearing.” will tell you everything I know about hearing loss, hearing aids, and hearing health.Smart Hearing Cover final

You can get it online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, in paperback or ebook for Kindle or Nook. You can also ask your library or favorite independent bookstore to order it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Affordable” Hearing Aids

Katherine Bouton #hearingaids, #HLAA., affordable hearing aids., Healthy Hearing

There’s a lot of talk about “affordable” hearing aids, much of it in anticipation of the Food and Drug Administration’s final approval of an over-the- counter hearing aid. We don’t know the specifics of the future OTC hearing aid but some have speculated that the cost will probably be around $1000.

Comparatively speaking, that is affordable. The cost of high-end hearing aids is approaching $4000 (for one). $3000 is not unusual. Costco’s least expensive hearing aid is $999.  There are less expensive devices, many available online, some of which use the term “hearing aid”, but buyer beware. For some people, they may work well out of the box. Others may end up with hearing aids that aren’t really right for them. As for hearing-aid like devices, PSAP’s or hearables, for some they will be adequate but for others not so good. And if they are too cheap, a 2016 Consumer Reports survey found, they can actually damage your hearing.

But these low-cost alternatives are still a major expense for many Americans, especially older Americans.  Earlier this year a Federal Reserve Board survey found that 40 percent of Americans could not cover a $400 emergency expense without selling something or borrowing.  A $1000 affordable hearing aid is not “affordable” for 40 percent of our population.

Medicare does not cover hearing aids. Some Medicare supplement programs do, as do some other insurance policies. But that 40 percent who can’t find a quick $400 for an emergency probably do not have this level of insurance. The V.A. also provides hearing aids to veterans with service-related hearing loss.

For many, Medicaid is the only solution. Medicaid covers hearing aids for adults in 28 states, including New York State where I live. For a complete list of states and of eligibility requirements for hearing aids, based on the severity of the loss, see this recent article in Health Affairs. Coverage varies widely from state to state, as does coverage for associated services like hearing-aid batteries.

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In this map, the dark red states have the best Medicaid hearing aid coverage. The pink states have no hearing aid coverage. The other states fall in between.

As the Health Affairs article concludes: older Americans “in states lacking comprehensive hearing health care coverage have few ways to access hearing aids or the professional services associated with hearing loss and hearing aid use.” As we know, untreated hearing loss is significantly related to other adverse health outcomes, especially in the elderly.

The Health Affairs study also found that over one-fourth of adults skipped necessary medical care in 2017 because they were unable to afford the cost.

So when we talk about “affordable” hearing aids, let’s remember that that is a relative term.

 

For more about hearing health, read my new book, which will tell you everything I know about hearing loss, hearing aids, and hearing health!Smart Hearing Cover final

You can get it online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, in paperback or ebook for Kindle or Nook. You can also ask your library or favorite independent bookstore to order it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My New Book

Katherine Bouton #HLAA., Cochlear Implants, dizziness, FDA and hearing aids, Global Hearing Loss, Healthy Hearing, Hearing Aids, hearing loss, Smart Hearing

SMART HEARING: Strategies, Skills and Resources for Living Better with Hearing Loss. Smart Hearing_Cover_highres

You can get it online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, in paperback or ebook for Kindle or Nook.

If you’re one of the the millions of Americans who have experienced hearing loss, whether newcomer or longtime veteran, this book is for you. It’s also for your friends and family, employers, counselors, clergy. Hearing loss is much misunderstood.

If you follow my blog, you’ve read some of this, but there’s much much more. Smart Hearing is an easy-to-read, comprehensive look at a big, confusing field. I hope you’ll read it, and share it with others who don’t seem to fully get what it is like to have hearing loss.

The opening chapters are about the basics: how to find an audiologist, how to buy a hearing aid, and how pay for it. Later chapters guide you through the world of assistive listening technology, CART captioning, hearing loops, and telecoils. Find out what a cochlear implant is, and who can benefit from one. Chapters on tinnitus and vertigo offer suggestions for prevention and treatment. (In the case of vertigo, some of the suggestions are from personal experience.)

The past year has been a tumultuous time in the hearing-health field. Smart Hearing untangles the confusion about over-the-counter hearing aids, PSAPs, the FDA and what it approves and what it doesn’t.

Everyday experiences are often frustrating for those with hearing loss: dinner parties, travel, work, restaurants. There’s a chapter on managing each of these challenges.

Finally, Smart Hearing urges reader to take note of the sometimes significant health costs of not treating hearing loss.

I hope you’ll read it and share it, and maybe even get your library to order it.

FDA Approves an OTC Hearing Aid

Katherine Bouton Bose, Healthy Hearing, OTC Hearing Aids

For the past year or so since the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 was passed, I and other hearing-loss advocates have patiently explained time and again that right now there are no OTC hearing aids. That’s because the FDA approval process includes a three-year comment period before it publishes its final regulations. And until that time, only hearing “devices” can be sold over the counter.

Or at least that was what we thought. Last Friday (October 5), the FDA took almost everyone by surprise when it announced that it had approved a Bose hearing aid that consumers will fit and program themselves.

The Bose Hearing Aid, the FDA announcement said, is intended for adults over 18 with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. “This is the first hearing aid authorized for marketing by the FDA that enables users to fit, program and control the hearing aid on their own, without assistance from a health care provider,” the announcement said. The wireless device processes sound through an earphone in the ear canal, and the user programs the aid on a smart phone.

The FDA does require compliance with sales regulations, “including state laws that might require hearing aids to be purchased from or dispensed by a licensed hearing aid dispenser.”  I’m not sure how many states have that regulation. Would welcome enlightenment.

The Bose Hearing Aid is not yet available, nor has the price been set, but Bose has landed a huge coup. As Abram Bailey at Hearing Tracker noted, “Bose has effectively been granted a very unique position by the FDA.”

The Bose Hearing Aid will be a new product, according to Sandy Weiss at Bose, rather than an adaptation of Bose’s Hearphone, which is a PSAP. As for when they will be available, Ms Weiss said in an email, there is as yet no new product announcement or distribution plan. She added that while details about future pricing are confidential, Bose does “expect to offer more affordable solutions than traditional hearing aid solutions currently on the market.”

So what made the FDA decide to approve this particular hearing aid? After reviewing data from clinical studies of 125 patients the FDA found the results persuasive enough that it approved the Bose Hearing Aid under its De Novo premarket review pathway. The De Novo pathway allows expedited approval of “low- to moderate-risk devices that are novel and for which there is no prior legally marketed device”. (Click here to see a list of other devices approved under the De Novo pathway so far in 2018.) Not only were the results of self-fitting comparable with those of a hearing professional, the FDA noted, but participants in the trial generally preferred their own settings over those selected by a hearing aid professional.

The announcement was made after the close of the European stock markets on Friday but by 10 AM Eastern time on Monday, the shares of the Danish companies GN Store Nord and William Demant Holding had each fallen by 13 percent, with Switzerland’s Sonova dropping 10 percent The American markets saw a similar drop. Obviously Bose, a privately held company, is seen as a threat to conventional hearing aid sales.