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The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

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Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

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post #304
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it is because most of those people expected the hearing aid to work for them, and did not want to do any of the work they needed to do themselves. Imagine not reading for 10 years because of bad eyesight, eye glasses do not make it so your brain can read, but instead makes it easier for your brain to see the symbols. your brain still needs to decode and comprehend them. Our hearing system is far more complica…

This honestly doesn't sound very empathetic toward patients. Many of these people had fine hearing and then lost it. They've already "learned" how to hear and they reasonably expect the hearing aid to help restore it. In your analogy, it would be like if my vision got worse and I got eyeglasses which partially restored it, but mirrored everything upside down with tons of static. Now I've got to learn to read upside d…

I got high quality progressive eyeglasses some years ago. Hated it at first. It was like swimming in a fish bowl. If you don't position your head correctly things are blurry. Now it's completely natural and I love them. I had to learn.

Hearing aids are the exact same. It's slightly unnatural but once you learn how to use the tool, it's a super power. I can hear conversations in crowded bars when normal people can't. Loud noises compress in a pleasant fashion. I just have to get used to some occasional spatial distortion and subtle flanging

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is far more to fixing your hearing issues that just amplifying sound. Sadly, most people wait too long before trying a hearing aid, and give up because they hear too much noise. Of the people I know who have gotten hearing aids, every single one of them was disappointed. Every single one of them still had trouble hearing. As far as I can tell, the only thing the audiologists appear to be able to be able to co…

> it's a vicious cycle of taking it home, realizing it's not really helping, and bringing it back to try a new one. Sounds like the calibration needs to happen in the home, not the doctor's office.

Many companies have remote adjustment now. They connect online and the user and audiologist talk on video.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long live the consolidation. May it work out better than the consolidation between tuna cans and more expensive hearing aids. (I have a friend who's an audiologist...watch Starkey, they are very proactive about industry changes and headwinds.)

Starkey is not exactly a quality company and I would be more than happy to see them put out of business. They tried to shaft their employees out of retirement money, they inflated their donation numbers, and a former executive was sent to prison for all kids of fraud.

I'm not familiar with those allegations, but none of that precludes them from innovating in the hearing aid space.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#406
post #128

How much would you pay for: *Hearing test * Hearing aid fitting * Usage counselling * Follow up adjustments * Annual retest of your hearing * Replacement of lost hearing aids * Unlimited repair for 3 years ?? ====== I got out of the Audiology field in 2015. At that time all the above was included for every hearing aid we sold (Prices varied from $750 / ear - $3600 / ear. When I was in that field many companies tried…

My wife's grandfather should have all of that through his VA, Medicare, and supplimental insurance. His hearing aids are the most annoying low quality overpriced pieces of crap you can imagine. And that stupid headphone amplifier thing they've sold him, garbage, literal garbage. A hobbyist could do better. The new schema may not be a panacea but I don't expect it to be worse than the status quo.

The VA will not co insure with Medicare but will with private insurance companies.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starkey is not exactly a quality company and I would be more than happy to see them put out of business. They tried to shaft their employees out of retirement money, they inflated their donation numbers, and a former executive was sent to prison for all kids of fraud.

I'm not familiar with those allegations, but none of that precludes them from innovating in the hearing aid space.

It is hard to do good work when you don’t have a team you trust.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long thought the problem with hearing aids is the calibration process. People (often old, confused, and less tech-familiar) try them on and spend half an hour answering questions about "does that sound better?" What if, instead, the calibration process worked constantly? Give the user a button to press when they don't hear something well, and another when they do. Let them have this for a month, let them try it…

There are actually a good reasons not to do this. A very large part of your hearing is brain training...your brain learning how to interpret the new stimulus it is getting. You need to give your brain time to adapt to new stimulus before evaluating whether you are hearing better or not. If you are constantly fiddling with your hearing aids, you never get the benefit of training. This may not apply if your hearing los…

Couldn't this brain training effect be included in a progressive algorithm like the one suggested? Such that the brain is gradually "guided" to the best performance by ramping up the hearing aid?

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#409
post #148
post #15

BUT WHAT IF PEOPLE ABUSE HEARING AID?????? To be serious: amount of things that are "prescription only", even if they can cause only minimal harm, is astounding.

You can cause more than "minimal" harm. Both hearing loss and comprehension can be changed by an improper hearing aid.

Can you estimate that harm in term of DALYs?

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#410
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These seem to exist for quite some time, like https://www.etymotic.com/product/gun-sport-pro/

I want something a bit more selective. Like, capable of completely blocking out the sound of my wife snoring. I’m sure that I’m not the only one in this boat, but I may be one of the rare males complaining about their wife snoring.

one upside of being hearing impaired: the wifes snoring doesn't bother me much.
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