Stigma of hearing aids

[citronlime9]

Hi everyone!

I'm studying to become a hearing aids specialist in Quebec and I decide this year to make a research about stigma associated with hearing aids. It's a subjet that I really care about! I think to have true comments will help my research So someone of you have already hearing aids? Did you find difficult for you to wear it in the beginning? and for the others who have possibility to have hearing aids but decide, for the moment or definitively, to don't have it why is yours reasons ?

Thank you so much!

Lucie

 

[Brian Harkness]

Great to know that you want to become a specialist of hearing aids that means in future you are going to help patient like us who is suffering from hearing loss.
Well the most common problem I experienced is that the hearing aids will completely resolve the communication problem and I was find that no hearing aid can fully restore the normal hearing ability.

 

[seb]

Hi everyone!

I'm studying to become a hearing aids specialist in Quebec and I decide this year to make a research about stigma associated with hearing aids. It's a subjet that I really care about! I think to have true comments will help my research So someone of you have already hearing aids? Did you find difficult for you to wear it in the beginning? and for the others who have possibility to have hearing aids but decide, for the moment or definitively, to don't have it why is yours reasons ?

Thank you so much!

Lucie

Lucie,

I have been wearing hearing aids for 5 years and have had no problems adjusting to them at all. I came out of my initial fitting with my target at 100% of amplification and have had a few adjustments along the way but have been very satisfied with the results.

I was not really concerned with what others would think about my hearing aids at all; perhaps this came from the fact that I wear glasses and I remember what it was like when I first got them and soon realized that nobody really cared that I was wearing them after the first time they saw me in them. I was also very open about my HA's and told most people I knew I was getting them, so there was no shock factor when I started wearing them.
The first thing I realized when I started wearing HA's was very few people even noticed them, they are definitely not like glasses, everyone knows your wearing glasses because they are on your face, but since hearing aids are in your ears and on the side of your head basically nobody notices them because they aren't looking at your ears when they are speaking to you. I even had to remove them and show them to several friends because they didn't believe that I was wearing them. Others that have noticed them over the years are: other HA wearers, people who are thinking of getting HA's and children, other than that nobody seems to notice. I have had more people ask about my Streamer that I wear around my neck than ask about my HA's; when told what it does, they want to know how they can get one!

If anything I have not experienced anything negative about wearing HA's and any stigma associated with wearing them is in the wearers head and not from than those around them. All in all, my life with HA's has been very positive and they have done everything that they are supposed to do and that is make hearing and my life easier!

 

[Ian Scott]

Stigma?

Hi Lucie

It wasn't a difficult decision for me, I'd been losing my hearing for some time before getting help, so without having to tell anyone it was pretty obvious in a lot of situations that I had trouble hearing.

However, I was a little nervous when I first went out in public wearing a hearing aid even though mine are hardly noticeable. I have small behind the ear aids with an open ear fit.

I have to admit that walking into my office wearing my aid for the first time really was nerve racking but looking back I don't know why? Is it stigma?

Getting a second aid was definitely easier than getting the first.