Current state of HA affairs

Saw this article while browsing. Cannot vouch for the authenticity of the article as it appears in many websites and sometimes under others names, however some of the points raised are very valid. It tries to view from the HA users perspective.

Extract from the article below. Complete article can be viewed here.

When a dissatisfied patient complains about the hearing aid, their hearing aid is re-programmed by a hit-and-trial method which further frustrates the patient and they give up using their aid altogether.

Hearing aids I use.

Let me start with the HAs I use(d).

In 2002 I first started wearing HA after a visit to Shreya's Hearing Clinic in Indiranagar. The audiologist there, Dr Sathya Ranna after testing my hearing, suggested a HA only for the right ear as it is less damaged of the two. I still could not figure out that logic. The model I selected was Siemens Phoenix 103, analog, behind the ear (BTE) for the right ear. I didn't had any idea about HAs till then, the primary reason for selection of this model was, it fit my budget. In fact it was equal to my monthly income then. It costed me 10k INR. I still have it and its working.

In 2007 went for a checkup with Shreya's at their Jayanagar outlet. It was found that my hearing loss has increased much more and I was prescribed HA for both my ears. Again I was at a loss which model to select. The audiologist with all her sales training pushed for a higher model costing 70k INR disregarding my budget. In the end went for digital model, Siemens Infiniti Pro, single channel, in the ear (ITE). That came at around 34k INR. The order took around a week to deliver. I will continue the user experience in the next post.   

Welcome to myself

I am, as you guessed, a hearing aid user from India. I am starting this blog to share my experiences in using Hearing Aids (HA), different options available in the market, get others opinion on their HAs, possibly share our old unused HAs with less fortunate ones and many other things that we could share through this medium.

Welcome to you all.