Sorry to butt in here, but I need your help

[zanne]

My husband has hearing loss. He started losing his hearing about two years ago. The problem is, he won't get hearing aids; he doesn't come out and say exactly why, but I think it's because he's afraid to look old or "imperfect" in some way. (He's 57). I'm not a good person to be living with if you can't hear well, because I hate to raise my voice. I find it incredibly annoying that I have to get next to him to speak to him. If I'm at one end of the house and he's at the other, we used to do just fine communicating, but now I have to go to him and speak loudly.
Any suggestions on how to get him to buy some hearing aids?

[DavidDvorkin]

1. I don't know if this will help

I put an essay about my experience with hearing loss and getting hearing aids on my Web site, at

http://www.dvorkin.com/essays/hearing.html

and in that I point out that you look even more old and imperfect when you're frowning to hear or asking people to repeat themselves than when you're wearing hearing aids.

Not to mention that some of the newest ones are very hard to see.

[recoveringrepublican]

2. First be aware that hearing aids are NOT a "cure"

I can hear if my husband is talking across the room (not in another part of the house though) with my aids, but I will not know what he is saying unless I can see his lips. Hearing aids will never make his hearing like it was before.

This is the only thing I can think of. Waiting for aids will make it harder for them to be of any help. The sooner he gets them the less his brain will "forget" how to process the sounds. That's my problem. If he's worried for vanity reasons, depending on the extent of his loss, there are many hearing aids that's aren't noticeable at all. Personally I like my behind the ear aids mainly because people CAN see them.

[Whoa_Nelly]

10. I know exactly waht you are talking about!

My best friend would get annoyed that I couldn't "translate" all she had said because, after all, I was now "fixed". I had to explain to her that having hearing aids is not a cure or a fix: It's really an enhancement, and I still can't always "hear" all that's said unless I look at the person directly.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kdpeters]

11. That was creepy. The deaf/hard of hearing group has a stalker

Hey, franksolich!! Kiss my dick!

[sandnsea]

4. He might need surgery

There are other things that can go wrong inside the ear. I hope he's been to an ear specialist.

What worked with my dad was when my little nephew would yell at him "Grandpa, put your batteries in!!" Grandpas will do anything for grandbabies. :)

[tblue37]

5. On my deaf/HoH site I have a couple of articles

on this topic.

One is "Refusing to Admit to Hearing Loss"
http://deafnotdumb.homestead.com/denial.html

The other is a very funny true story, about a man in his 80s whose wife, also in her 80s, couldn't persuade him to get a hearing aid. One day she fell in the bedroom, hurt herself, and couldn't get up. He couldn't hear her calling for help, because he was severely HoH anyway, and he had the TV turned up loud in the other room. She managed to scooch her way along the floor and knock the phone off the nightstand to call 911, just before passing out from shock. The first he knew of her situation was when the cops broke into the house to rescue her.

But still he refused to admit he needed a hearing aid.

You can read the whole story on my site--
"What Does It Take to Persuade Someone to Get a Hearing Aid?" http://www.deafnotdumb.homestead.com/mac.html

You can guess what it took to make him get a hearing aid from the title my (also deaf) sister suggested for the story: "Will Hear for Sex."

[Roon]

6. My Grandparents both need hearing aids

and they get mad at each other because they can't hear each other. Yet, they refuse to get hearing aids. It's very distressing.

[recoveringrepublican]

7. Is it because they can't afford them? They ain't cheap!

How long have the had their loss? You know what made me buy them? We had a little money saved up, and my husband suggested I try out aids. I took my 4-month-old daughter with me. They put the mics in my ears and turned them on. I almost started crying, as I could hear my little baby cooing, I didn't realize (my loss had just started to get worse) that I was missing it. I could hear so many ordinary things that I use to hear, and didn't realize I was no longer hearing. I bought a pair that day.

Maybe just try to take them to an audibel, or someplace like that. They don't have to buy anything (and I wouldn't suggest it until they see an audiologist), but they will be able to understand that they do indeed have a loss and aids might make it better. From my experience, and a few others deaf/hoh friends, the longer they wait to get aids, the less the aids will help them.

That said, I don't like wearing my aids. I prefer the silence, but I have had 10 years of figuring out how to get around hearing. I also only had maybe 15 years of perfect hearing, not decades, that would really be distressing.

[Hepburn]

8. I am 59, almost 60, and I just got the first aids I can use.

Had nothing to do with vanity...the old style aids DROVE ME CRAZY!!! I have the new digital hearing aids...and they are tiny as all get out. I am female, but wear my hear pulled back and my ears are in full view. You have to really, really look to see that I am wearing hearing aids. They are CIC ~~ completely in the canal ~~ hearing aids. Flesh colored and unless you get right up to me and are at the right angle and look right into my ears, you would never know I am wearing hearing aids in both ears.

Now, my friend's husband just got an aid that is an over the ear style...and I really, really had to look to see he was wearing a hearing aid. The ear is no longer filled in with plastic in this style, but a VERY THIN tube extends into the ear and it is nearly invisible. The piece behind the ear is thinner than and eye glass ear piece.

So...please....tell your hubbie that hearing aids are no longer those HUGE hulking things of the past!

[liberalhistorian]

9. Tell him that I'm 43 and have worn hearing aids

since I was twenty; it is NOT just "old people" who need to wear them. And tell him how much easier life will be with the aids, believe me. I certainly understand why a lot of people don't want to wear them and sometimes they are a pain, such as when they run out of batteries at the worst moment, their delicacy, etc., etc. But there's no longer any stigma in wearing them, like there once was, and it makes a lot of things a LOT easier.