Does Anyone Here Use Eargo Hearing Devices

[Masterlu]

[FreddieFerric]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

[JMAC]

Welly, welly, well ! ( not sure were that came from, but I think I heard it in a movie or in several movies in my youth. British, I'm guessing )

This thread is certainly timely! I see the opening post was 4/8. I had a hearing test the next day, 4/9/18. The only other time I had one was mid to late 1970's. I was mid to late 20's. I went to bed one night and heard a, at the time, rhythmic sound that I thought was crickets, but quickly realized that was unlikely as it was the middle of winter. Plugged my ears and, yup, still there. So I've had mild tinnitis ever since.

Forward to now:
I had the test performed by an audiologist and then an ENT came in and said that I wasn't going to like the results and that was a an understatement.

See attachment below. Sorry about the poor quality- that's as good as the printout I was given.
Be sure to note the comments/recommendations at bottom/left. They're particularly helpful.



He said that from 250Hz (their starting point) to 1k HZ it was normal. It's down 20dB, I see, but maybe that's normal for my age.

As you can see, everything above 1000Hz is down another 50 dB! I'm surprised that I can hear myself think!


It's nearly 3:00 AM here and a lot to explain. Maybe tomorrow...uh, I mean later today. Probably not before noon, here (the left coast.)

I'll just say now that, for the first time in my life, I'm going to get a second opinion and maybe a third, fourth, etc.

I wasn't really expecting to post anything about this subject until, maybe, I was selling things, but then, this thread... There was no talk at all about hearing aids even though that office deals with them. I was just given an appointment for 12 months hence.


John, the unhappy camper

[JMAC]

A little more info-it takes me forever to type something.

First, a bit of good news is that I remembered a couple of weeks ago that I have a preamp, C50, with an 8 band equalizer. It helps a lot to twist the 1k and 2.5k knobs all the way up. Maybe someone can tell me why because the C50 Mc Manual says it only gains 6dB and the test says I'm down 50dB relative to the frequencies below 1k, which I'm not adjusting.
Ha! It just occured to me that, if necessary, I could cut 6dB from below 1k while boosting it above & then boost everything globally with the vol knob, giving me 12 dB of relative gain, if I should need it. That should work...pretty sure

My hearing at those frequecies has been impaired for some time. More or less a year. At first, it was explained that sinus congestion could be pressing on Eustachian tubes ( this is not from the EN&T specialist). Then I thought the congestion was being perpetuated by a deep infection in an upper molar that escaped several bite-wing x-rays for months. I kept complaining that a deep ache would come and go if I didn't favor that tooth. Finally a 3d scan of my head showed the infection. A soft tissue specialist said that the tooth infection couldn't infect the sinus cavity above it but could cause it to want to fill up with fluid.
_____________

Part of the reason I'm telling all of this:
If anyone has a recurring deep ache and bite-wing x-rays don't show anything, you should consider the 3d x-ray. It's pricey at almost $400 around here, but...
__________

A soft tissue specialist (I forget the title) determined that the tooth was in fact dead and needed a pulling. I said "let's pull it", but he referred me back to my regular dentist. From what I was told I was expecting a root canal when I went in there so you can imagine my disappointment...who doesn't like a good root canal?
That tooth was cracked and had been for some time so I imagine that it was the result of the car accident I was in years ago & posted a picture of here somewhere. It was a hard enough blow that I was instantly unconscious. I read after the settlement that such a dental scenario could happen. I also read after the settlement that a single concussion is now thought to possibly contribute to the likelihood of dementia. Swell; My mother had dementia the last couple years of her 88 years & heredity is, of course, a factor in dementia.

________________________________________

I apologize to everyone, especially Freddie Ferric for highjacking this thread!!
Maybe someone will be in a similar situation and benefit from my ramblings, especially the following:

I haven't been able to accept that nothing can be done because the hearing loss came on suddenly and in both ears at the same time I became conjested. AND, I just realised that it was also the same time I started taking meds for a heart attack I had last May 8th.
Normally I wouldn't remember that date, but I knew that Joe Bonamassa turned 40 on that date from all the times I watched his first time at Royal Albert Hall (2009)

I guess I was too fat at 177#11oz @ 5'10.5"...__________I'm about 167lbs now.

Just NOW, I just searched for and found this: (and this info isn't in the side effect warnings that come with drug, at least not mine) Link to more at bottom

Plavix and Hearing loss - from FDA reports

Hearing loss is found among people who take Plavix, especially for people who are female, 60+ old ,(read on-43% are male)have been taking the drug for 1 - 2 years, also take medication Aspirin, and have High blood cholesterol. This review analyzes which people have Hearing loss with Plavix. It is created by eHealthMe based on reports of 106,870 people who have side effects when taking Plavix from FDA , and is updated regularly.


Time on Plavix when people have Hearing loss *: I'll have been on it 1 year on May 8.

< 1 month: 12.5 %
1 - 6 months: 0.0 %
6 - 12 months: 12.5 %
1 - 2 years: 75.0 %
2 - 5 years: 0.0 %
5 - 10 years: 0.0 %
10+ years: 0.0 %



Gender of people who have Hearing loss when taking Plavix *:

female: 56.72 %
male: 43.28 %


Age of people who have Hearing loss when taking Plavix *:

0-1: 0.0 %
2-9: 0.0 %
10-19: 0.0 %
20-29: 1.71 %
30-39: 0.5700000000000001 %
40-49: 1.71 %
50-59: 33.71 %
60+: 62.29 %

___________________________ There is more info

_________________________________LINK:https://www.ehealthme.com/ds/plavix/hearing-loss/



.

[FreddieFerric]

^^Sorry to read of your health misfortunes. I can assure you the Eargo products would be of no use to you.

I had a full audiologist test a year ago. Prior to purchasing the device I emailed the hearing graphs to them. Their reply was that I would benefit from their hearing aids. I’m only on my third day with them, so I’m still in a learning curve with them.

I’m going to withhold any comments on these devices until I’ve been using them for a month. At that time I’ll post my review here.

[JMAC]

[QUOTE=FreddieFerric;911264]^^Sorry to read of your health misfortunes. I can assure you the Eargo products would be of no use to you.

Thank you and best of luck!!

I probably wouldn't have brought up my hearing loss if you hadn't made this post. (and if that was the case, I wouldn't have made any comments in the future about how anything sounded)
My own voice sounds muffled to me. I would have thought that after all this time, I would think it the new normal, but I don't. It's obvious.

I think my issue is drug induced. I think that because it was sudden and bi-lateral and concurrent with never ending sinus congestion & heart meds.

I sent the info I posted here to the EN&T specialist. I haven't found any info about the likelihood of my hearing returning when I stop taking Clopidogrel (Plavix) I'd already made an appointment to see the cardiologist 5/22. That visit is to look at labs I'll have taken with the intention of stopping the Plavix. That'll be over a year of taking it. I'm going to send the posted info to him to see if it can happen sooner. I'm guessing that he won't go for it, that the heart issue is more important in his mind and the probable discontinuation of the drug is as close (in his mind) as 5/8 anyway.

Hearing is important to everyone, second only to vision for everyone I would think... EDIT: But audiophiles...well, we're "NutBoys". Just ask a random nonaudiophile. There is probably the word "audiophilia" in medical texts as a pathological condition! Dunno.

I may have to tell him, as I did the ENT of the added significance, perhaps, to an audiophile. Perhaps especially to one who spent a portion of an inheritance on an amount of equipment that is probably, literally, 100 times what one would guess was spent considering the neighborhood.(to bring it home to him)


-----------------------------------------
> (for anyone not familiar with Ca: I remember my father saying when we moved to the East Bay from MN in the early 60's that he'd never been anywhere where he saw mansions next to shacks, lol)
My neighborhood isn't that extreme; there is a house or two at each end that might be worth 50 to 100% more than the rest. Mine isn't a shack, but it's closer to that, I suppose, than a manse.
Interestingly, perhaps, I could have easily moved if I'd known about/received all the inheritance all at once (more was found) Probably wouldn't have, though as there probably would not have been enough $/time in my life to do that along with the toys.
Oh, probably not news to anyone, anyone who's been married for any length of time anyway, that I wouldn't have $60k+ spent on audio, even though it was my inheritance, if I didn't live alone - by choice, thankfully. Because not as much moolah to go around here as at the homes of some AAers who are captains of industry, Nobel prize winners etc, married & have spent that much or more
Not complaining by any means. I feel fortunate to have what I do. <
--------------------------------------------



I only mention all of this because, if my hearing doesn't come back, not to mention get worse, then I've spent, what, 2 or 3 times what I could have for the level of SQ that I have using the 8-band equalizer. It still sounds good, but some of the 'magic' isn't there . That nth degree, to me, of realism is lost. It's actually still there of course -at least until I move something. But I have no intention of doing that because, if someone else is visiting and listening, I would have no idea what it was sounding like to them if I had moved anything. I would have bypassed equalization & it would be muffled (and lower in spl) to me, but should have that magic for them if nothing had been moved.

I think this gear, especially the line array sounds pretty amazing, now that I adjusted the speakers several times and been "amazed' each time at the improvement. Not moving them now! See above.

I doubt that J. Valin would agree. I remember his comment from a show. I don't remember if it was the XRT1k's or 2k's,(it was one of them) but his comment was, I believe, "nothing special here"...!!! He must be fairly jaded by all the 6 figure speakers that he specializes in, if they truly sound that much better.

OR maybe for Mr. Valin:

Maybe the room at that venue was typically poor.


I have to assume that McIntosh knows how to set up their speakers .....then again, maybe not:

I just remembered (and respectfully, I suggest that no one reply to this, I don't want to start something. I really, truly don't) the replies to what I posted about what the owner of and the engineer in charge of preamp design of a respected high end audio lab had to say, unsolicited and on separate occasions, that P*** Labs had "one guy back at the lab who could hear the difference in wires". AND:
I only bring this up because one or more replies said something like most manufacturers aren't audiophiles. Implying, I guess, that manufacturers of gear so expensive, that, lets face it, only audiophiles would give a thought to purchasing, can't hear.

> SO, maybe that: the manufactures' set up wasn't optimal even if the room was. And they never seem to be optimal.

Oh, just remembered something else that might speak to that so I looked it up. If I remember, I'll put a link to the Youtube clip below. It was at a show on Christmas day, 2010. Even though the title of the clip has been corrected, Chuck Hinton refers to a new speaker as the XRT300, which was changed to XRT1k when released. What I'm getting at here is that those speakers are set up in a corner and by that I mean that each speaker's backside faces a different wall. I don't know if anyone here has experience with that, but I tried once, hard, to get that to work with speakers and couldn't. But that's where McLabs had them set up & I get a sense of the room being large, like they probably could have gone elsewhere. Just sayin.


> Also, I do remember that a member here said that he'd never heard speakers that sounded so good in one position yet so mediocre in another as the XRT1k.



I know, I'm going on & on.


It occurred to me earlier that maybe I should have started a thread, but as I think I said (it's too much for me to reread ) I wouldn't have aired this if FreddieFerric hadn't posted. I think anyone on AA concerned about hearing issues ( I'm guessing here that AA has a largely ...uh, let's say 'mature' deomgraphic... ) would be looking at a post with the words 'hearing aid' in it. I said largely. I'm sure that there are young whippersnappers on AA... ..I'll have to look up the derivation, the etymology of that word. I was a whippersnapper myself when I first heard/read it.



Ok,OK

Once again, FreddieFerric

Thank you and best of luck!!


___Wow, I actually remembered the XRT1k link. I'm surprised!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwJAiiPI1Gc





.

[1KW]

Originally Posted by Antonmb

I haven’t used Eargo, but have used hearing aids for years (Oticon). The only suggestion I have is, if you have hearing loss or are experiencing hearing issues, if you haven’t already, see a professional audiologist before buying something over the internet to make sure they’re right for your particular circumstances.

See a ENT, audiologist make a living selling hearing aids so they are likely to try and sell you a hearing aid either way

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by 1KW

See a ENT, audiologist make a living selling hearing aids so they are likely to try and sell you a hearing aid either way

Guess that depends on the audiologist.
“Audiologists are healthcare professionals who provide patient-centered care in the prevention, identification, diagnosis, and evidence-based treatment of hearing, balance, and other auditory disorders”

[JMAC]

I moved up the lab work needed toward the end of getting off Plavix.

At least 1 1/2 more hours of fasting.

I'm hungry; craving a burger; haven't had one in years ... Could eat a





.

[JMAC]

Well, I had the lab work & cardiologist visit. He ok'd stopping the Plavix like I'd hoped, at the end of 1 year of taking it, which will be in a few days.
I mentioned to him that, for several days, I'd been stretching out the interval between doses and got no reaction from him; probably because he later said that the Plavix accomplishes what it is supposed to in most people in a few months, but 12 months is prescribed; for good measure I guess (don't remember).

Also, after I gave him a spiel about what I think is the possibility (whether it is medical orthodoxy or not) of one drug or other causing my hearing loss, he made a change from Zocor (simvastatin) to Lipitor (atorvastatin).
As expected, the cardiologist is immoveable on the subject of 81mg dose of aspirin. That is the one drug I'm taking that is at all connected with known hearing issues, albeit only at massive levels of consumption. I tried beforehand to impress upon him how unusual I am in many ways; tried to impart to him, what I think is the gravitas of that re my possible off-book response to these meds and gave examples of unusual reactions to other meds I've taken. He was apparently unmoved; one thing he said was that he had several patients who say they are unusual.

I just looked for a term used for the above, it's: idiosyncratic drug reaction.

I'm not upset with him, it's what I expected and he's very pleasant.

Well, it's ~ midnght here. I'll tell, some of, what I think is fairly unusual about me another time.

Spoiler: I think I was dropped on my head at an early age, like maybe in the delivery room !! ...wait, what am I laughing at; I am an audiophile


.