Naida/Supero, captions

Had an audiology appointment today at 11:30. Audie fitted the new earmold for my left ear, attached it to my Supero hearing aid, and hey no feedback! Awesome. But it sure feels odd to have a hearing aid in the left ear. It's been so long, it just feels weird. And I can feel the earmold vibrating in my ear too. I had to turn the volume down on the Supero to reduce the earmold vibrating. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be hearing anything with the left ear, but we want to keep the auditory nerve simulated.

Also made a few adjustments to the Naida. Brought up the level on the SoundRelax feature to moderate (was on low before), so will see how that works now. Also put in a program for Speech in Noise, and modified it so the background noise would be reduced so I could hear speech in front of me (I asked about ZoomControl, and she had to call Phonak. Turns out one would need 2 Naida IXs for the ZoomControl feature, but she was able to modify the Speech in Noise so it'd be similar to the ZoomControl). Also had her turn on Telecoil on the hearing aid too, so when I get home I'll experiment with the MusicLink from TecEar and the ipod. She took the EasyPhone programming off, since I don't even use a phone, and put Telecoil in the EasyPhone spot, to see if putting the MusicLink to my ear will cause my hearing aid to switch to the Tcoil automatically. If not, no big deal.

She also loaned me the iCom to try out, as well. I'll definitely be doing some "experimenting" over the next 3 weeks with the Telecoil and iCom functions, and see which works best for me.

I'm quite happy with the Naida IX. Definitely a much better progress this time of adapting to it. No glitches or any of the problems like I experienced the V 2 years ago. I still continue to pick up on more sounds here and there.


Also, in the last few weeks, I've emailed the CW station about the lack of captions on their channel on my TV. I wasn't sure if it was the local CW channel doing that, or if it was a problem with the cable or what was going on. After chatting with Bresnan cable, I was able to turn on the Subtitles option on the cable box. But that still didn't do anything. CW channel was still captionless. So I asked some of my friends on Facebook if they got captions or not. One said no, and another said yes. I had the 2nd friend send me pictures of her cable box, to see if it was different. Indeed, she had a different box, the newer Pace box. After relay-calling Bresnan, they sent a tech guy out. I mentioned that my friend had the Pace box and got the captions, and he said he noticed that difference too. The older Motorola box just doesn't pick up the captions for the CW channel for some reason (which is odd, since the captions work fine on most other channels). But he took the old Motorola box out, and hooked up the new Pace box, and now the captions work great! Awesome. Now I should be able to enjoy watching Supernatural and Smallville once again. Of course, I need to get caught up, which I'll do at some point. I'm just happy to finally have captions for the CW channel again.

Naida IX UP

Got the nice new RED Naida IX. so far not bad. Just very basic right now. Have another appointment for Sept. 16. Audie doesn't think Medicaid will cover icom but she'll call Phonak and find out. Will have to try the hearing aid in different situations and figure out what adjustments need to be made. Also new earmold impression made for the left ear, 3/4 shell (half shell wasn't good enough, Supero hearing aid feedbacks like CRAZY). Audie is also going to get a NoahPro set up on her computer so she can adjust the Supero and reduce feedback on it.

Been hearing random things when I got back to my apartment. My dog had 2 tags on his collar (1 for rabies vaccination, the other is ID tag), but I had to take the ID tag off so the tags wouldn't "clink" (I need to get him a new ID tag with updated info anyway). I heard the clinking with the Supero, but it wasn't too bad. But now, whoa buddy he's so NOISY! I'm about ready to take all the squeakers out of his toys too! And I've kept hearing this buzzing going on, I think it was coming from outside. Not sure what it was... maybe traffic? or lawn mowing (although the lawn mowing was done yesterday) or plane? I have no idea. I think it's cars passing by.

MusicLink issues

And already I've got issues with the TecEar NoizFree music link. Great. I think the wiring connection has gotten a bit loose. I have to play with the cord a bit to get the best results for listening to music, but I move in the slightest bit, the connection disappears. Definitely not too happy with this right now. I'll have to speak with my audie on Tuesday and see if there's something else I could use to listen to music on my ipod. I don't want to have to keep buying the Hatis Epic or the TecEar NoizFree every time the old one breaks. Seems like no matter what I do, I'm somehow rough with both device (although the Hatis Epic will last me about a year so I get a longer use out of it).

I have used Phonak's FM unit in the past for listening to music, but I quit using it when the FM transmitter kept breaking so often (I got this transmitter back in Jan. 2001 when I got the Claro hearing aid). It's an older transmitter, one which Phonak doesn't make/sell anymore. And buying a whole new unit would just cost more money that I don't have. Maybe I could try using DAI or something. I don't know, but I'll have to discuss this with the audie and see if we can figure something out. Or maybe the icom? I don't even know.

Word of Hope Deaf School

I haven't had much luck with my Hearing Aids for Africa project. But that's ok, I tried. And I'm still trying. But I also learned that the African Hope Initiative is trying to raise $40,000 by October. That money will be used to purchase hearing aids and provide education for the deaf kids in Burkina Faso. The African Hope Initiative will be flying out to Burkina in November to provide the hearing aids and funds.

You can donate money directly to:
African Hope Initiative
P.O. Box 631324
Littleton, CO 80163-1324

or online at http://africanhopeinitiative.org/contribute/

For more info, check out this blog entry.

Also, here's a video about the Word of Hope Deaf School.

Today's Appointment

Today I got to meet the new audiologist at the office, since the previous one left to help a relative out for a while. Don't know how long he'll be out, but I was really pleased with the new audie. She's extremely nice, has a husband that wears hearing aids, yeah. She read some of the notes in my file and noticed that I was working on getting a cochlear implant. When she saw that, she got on me for not having a hearing aid on in the left ear for stimulation purposes. She made an earmold impression of the left ear so I can get a mold and start using my analog again later on. We also discussed different power hearing aids, and she's placed an order for a Phonak Naida IX UP, red transparency. Oooo. She tried to hook up my Supero to the computer to make adjustments to it, but alas, she doesn't have the cable cord so the adjustment didn't happen. But overall, I was really pleased with today's appointment! I think I'll be happy with her. Have an appointment for ... I think it was Aug. 24... erm, I have the appointment card at home on my fridge. Since she's the only audie in the whole office, and she's taking on the previous audie's clients, she's rather busy these days, but what else can I do? Last I checked, there weren't any other local audiologists that accept Medicaid.

It seemed like she was familiar enough with how Phonak's newer hearing aids function, and of how to program them... I brought up that I had tried the Naida V a couple years back and that it was so full of problems I wasn't happy then. She said part of it was probably because of the compression feature. Hm!

Noizfree, hearing aid trial

Late last week, I finally broke down and ordered the NoiZfree iNoiZ music and audio t-coil induction earhook/silhouette directly from tecear.com, since the my Hatis Epic silhouette isn't working as well anymore (wiring once again broke or wore out inside the cord). Why I went with NoiZfree instead of Hatis this time? NoiZfree is cheaper. I received it in the mail today and immediately plugged it into my ipod to give it a try. Yes, I do have to play with it a bit more to find the "right" spot behind the ear for the hearing aid to pick up on sounds going through it via t-coil... but hey, it works! I'm happy with it so far. And the cord is coiled on the NoiZfree, which is great. The cord was far too long on the Hatis (if completely unwound, the cord would reach the floor with the silhouette behind my ear). I'm definitely liking the coiled cord on NoiZfree. Actually, at first, I ordered the Music Link from TecEar, but then I found the NoiZfree music one, so I emailed TecEar's customer support and ask them if my original order could be changed to the NoiZfree (they both are the same price). I don't know if there is much difference between NoiZfree and Music Link, I don't even know if MusicLink has a coiled cord like NoiZfree does. Anyway, TecEar were able to change my order, no problem. And the shipping is quite fast too. I could have ordered this from Harris Communications, but they charge an extra $10, and since I'm trying to save my money as much as I can, it made more sense to order directly from TecEar.

The trial with the Sumo has gone well for the most part. Except, whenever I wanted to listen to music, I've used the Supero instead. I really do not like the loud buzzing interference with the Sumo's t-coil setting when near electronics. But other than that, the Sumo isn't a bad hearing aid. It works well. I've even worn it to Walmart to see how it did in noise, but I don't know if there was much difference between the Sumo and Supero... With Supero I could switch to the NoiseAdapt setting and that brought down the background noise... I don't know. But tomorrow I'll start trialing a Naida IX, so we'll see how that goes.

Oticon Sumo: Day 1

Day 1 of the Oticon Sumo DM hearing aid trial. So far, not too bad. Mom thinks I'm doing better with the Sumo, I'm responding more and not asking her to repeat as often as I did with the Supero. Definitely don't care for the telecoil on the Sumo when I'm close to electronics/computers, the buzzing is louder and more noticeable than the Supero's (and even more obnoxious sounding in the car!). Although, having a T+M setting is nice, but surely the Supero could be programmed to have T+M.... But yeah. I think I have been picking up a bit more without having to lipread with the Sumo than I did with the Supero. But sound-quality wise, I'm not really noticing much of a difference. Well, tonight when I was at Mom's house, she was tapping her fingers on the remote (a habit of hers), and I was REALLY hearing it. I've heard the tapping with the Supero too, but I'm not sure if it was louder with the Sumo or not.

I still think music sounds better with the Supero, with the telecoil setting. Volume is just right on. With the Sumo, I think the hearing aid was trying to suppress the volume from my ipod, so the music just wasn't as loud (as I normally like it). Even played with the volume setting on both the Sumo and the ipod. I still have a whole week to go to trial the Sumo. The Sumo may use older technology, but it is still a powerful hearing aid.

Next Tuesday, I'll trial Phonak's Naida IX UP. Yes, the Naida, the one I despised a couple years ago when I trialed it then (the V UP). Phonak and audiologist both say the glitches/issues that a batch of the early Naidas have since been resolved (Naida shutting off on its own, etc.). And audiologist has a few clients who are really liking the Naida and the benefits they're getting from the hearing aids. I'm hoping the upcoming trial period will be better. Yes, I'm very sure it'll still take several programming adjusting sessions to get the Naida tweaked just right (I don't think we had the V UP tweaked just right the first time, but with all the other problems I was having with it, I just couldn't be bothered with it after the 3 months of trialing).