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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

#411

Post by dmi »

phreeza wrote: post #408
FPGAhacker wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My (Phonak) hearing aids had a multi-week ramp-up to full power, in order to give my brain time to slowly adjust. Dealing with things like the occlusion effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occlusion_effect) just takes time, and getting used to something being in your ear for a large number of hours per day.

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

#412

Post by dmi »

keithnz wrote: post #325
jrace wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THere may be now, but not 5 years ago. I have many ideas about how the industry can be improved, especially with the use of a smart phone app and user interactions. Not only is it plausible, but would make the clinicians (fitter) job easier and lead to far more hearing aid sales.

my partners hearing aids has a smart phone app, but it seems to be built with the concept of someone else putting the calibration into it. They can then create profiles for the different situations, however it strikes me that the hearing test calibration could be done in the app as well. I would imagine for a lot of people, if you could just buy them online you wouldn't need the clinicians for many cases.

The app for my hearing aids allows my audiologist to make remote adjustments, so I don't even need to visit their office for straightforward changes. I really want to reverse-engineer it so that I can modify some of the details of the profiles myself.

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

#413

Post by dmi »

kradeelav wrote: post #364
bane wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really needed is a decoupling of the hearing test from the calibration activity. A basic hearing test takes a few minutes in an isolated box with headphones (the 'ol click a button if you hear the tone test). From that profile it should be trivial to build out the profile of what frequencies to boost and what not to and program the aids there.

I appreciate the optimism (and do think there's some room for efficiency improvements!), but each step is a little more complicated than that. a true audiometric room/booth to do the testing (eg fully soundproof) in is very rarely found outside of audiologist offices or specialized academic spaces, for starters, and I do believe those are required for paperwork (whether it be insurance related part of the process to…

To add to this — I suffer from Ménière's disease, which manifests for me as variable hearing loss. Some days are bad, and I can hardly hear/understand speech even when someone is right in front of me and I can lip-read. Some days are good, and my hearing aids are uncomfortably loud or make things sound "weird". But most days, my hearing aids do exactly what I need them to :-)

I've had audiograms taken on moderate and bad days, and the difference in frequency response was significant (up to 30dBA difference across only the lower frequency bands).

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

#415

Post by jermaustin1 »

abakker wrote: post #381
babyshake wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think that even if turned off, Airpods and similar devices act as decent earplugs in a pinch.

with a lot of woodworking tools the AirPods pros definitely offer more protection than nothing. Not sure what attenuation they offer, but for the truly damaging higher frequency noise they seem to do a pretty decent job. I still wear real ear protection, but for the odd cut, or for any other day to day situation with loud noises the AirPods do a good job.

Same thing for me. Ear protection + AirPods = Silence. What I like about the AirPods Pro is they actually fit INSIDE my over ear protectors.

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

#416

Post by onphonenow »

falcolas wrote: post #330
slownews45 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a higher end audio setup, I can put the sound calibration mic in the listening position etc (think YPAO / Audyssey etc). But you get little weird sync issues at times between sources / displays etc. On a whim I tried Apple's wireless sync. It's end to end, and works as well as I could with manual tuning (which I would do by filming at high speed a time audio sync track) https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comme…

> Let the market decide I really hate it when people say "let the market decide" when it comes to health care. It's how we get $10,000 suppositories (a story earlier this week). It appears you really like Apple's audio hardware (whereas I think it's middling crap), know little about hearing loss, and I don't feel like arguing the points. Congratulations, you win.

That’s not the market - if one person is paying and another consuming you get crazy distortions.

As to whether AirPods etc are crap - I’ll let you have you opinion- I like them and they seem to sell well

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

#417

Post by tim333 »

t-writescode wrote: post #375
skellera wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking about this with the announcement of the new AirPods. Apple could really take the concert earplug market while getting great natural marketing (people wearing AirPods at concerts). Just balance and lower the volume for concerts.

Are we confident that Airpods Pros (or similar) would be effective noise isolation to reduce tinnitus? This is especially in question, to me, with the numerous reports of people getting tinnitus while wearing the airpods with noise cancellation on.

Getting tinnitus that was is just a function of how much sound there is in your ears. So headphones with loud rock music can cause issues, headphones on quiet less so and can block external noise, as can a blob of wax or whatever.

You don't really need fancy noise cancelling for tinnitus prevention, just some form of bung in your ear.

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

#418

Post by tim333 »

jl2718 wrote: post #250
jrace wrote: 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…

Why is a doctor needed to do any of that?

I just looked at the NHS site and they suggest your doc check your ears are not just bunged up with wax.

Beyond that I'm not sure why I'd need professionals rather than an app to do some hearing tests.

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

#419

Post by tim333 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #163
diob wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many cost barriers to treatments. It's definitely not for patients at this point. For instance, I am supposed to redo my sleep apnea test every so often. But it's out of pocket? Why bother, I know mine is due to my genetics (I'm not overweight). So why am I subjected to reproving my need for a prescription? For eyeglasses, if someone wants to continue the same prescription they can't. It's like healthcar…

> For eyeglasses, if someone wants to continue the same prescription they can't. What? You don't need a medical prescription to order glasses online. You can put in whatever numbers you want and they'll happily make them. You'd be an idiot to do so, however, as your vision can change with age.

>You'd be an idiot to do so, however, as your vision can change with age.

I just use reading glasses but the desired strength can vary day to day depending on what you are doing and my eyes vary too. This can be dealt with easier by having a number of pairs of reading glasses and seeing which works best rather than doing prescription stuff. You can buy reading glasses for £1 here so I tend to get a few.

I'd still recommend going to a good optometrist occasionally in case there is something more worrying up with your eyes.

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

#420

Post by sprainedankles »

As someone with moderate hearing loss in both ears since ~1st grade, I'm all for expanding access to hearing aids. It took changing doctors in high school to finally get a prescription, and it was life-changing. Not cheap, but entirely worth it - I'm grateful to have had access at that point.

Cost is still a challenge, of course. But I'd like to point out that my current set of aids ($2800 pair) just hit the 5-year mark of usage, and they are still working perfectly. For devices that I use ~16 hours a day, everyday, it's amazing. However, it took 3 visits to the audiologist to get the tuning/fitting just right. For the first month of use, these hearing aids were "garbage" (I was really frustrated). But once we hit the mark, I have had zero complaints ever since.

So, that all said, there is tremendous value to initiatives like the Bose SoundControl Hearing Aids (~$900 pair off-the-shelf hearing aids), but the biggest hurdle they face is the fitting/tuning portion. I've tried them, but they don't fit my ears well, so I can't use them effectively (yet - I want to try adjusting the receiver cables).

I'm hopeful this is just the turbulent beginning of a new hearing aid market that expands access to as many people as possible, because it is far from a solved problem.

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