I have unilateral hearing loss all my life. I want to know about options as I am worried as I get older I could loose my hearing in my good - right ear.
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Welcome Cat,
Other than knowing what it is, Iâm not experienced in unilateral hearing loss and its treatment, but Iâm answering anyway mainly to bump your very good question back up to the top of the forum and hopefully generate some more replies from those who are.
You need a good audiologist who has experience with this, and itâs not an uncommon problem, so that is doable in most locations.
Treatment options can include: one or two regular hearing aids, or a pair of CROS hearing aids (which in the good ear is a microphone sending a signal to the hearing aid in the ear that is not hearing well). With your moderate to borderline severe loss in that ear, both of those may be worth discussing with an audiologist or trying devices for. You should be seeking a prescription hearing aid from an audiologist at least for the one ear, though, with this level of loss, not an over-the-counter hearing assistance device.
Some audiologists may encourage patients with unilateral hearing loss to buy a pair of regular hearing aids anyway; they then tune the aid in the good ear to not amplify sound nearly as much in that ear. Whether thatâs the better way to go for the patientâs needs or for the audiologistâs sales figures is a question I have no experience with. I do know that many people with unilateral hearing loss do very well with buying just one hearing aid, so it is certainly possible. Depending on your budget, CROS aids may be a better way to go in your situation than just one hearing aid.
If you begin developing hearing loss in the good ear, and if your loss hasnât gotten worse in the other ear, then a pair of regular hearing aids will be the way to go.
If your loss in the impaired ear becomes worse, there are other options including a bone-anchored hearing aid or cochlear implant.
One possible complication to treating your unilateral loss is that youâve had this all your life. There can be cognitive issues in not processing speech long-term, certainly if the loss is bilateral. Iâm not sure if thereâs any cognitive issue when the lifetime loss is unilateralâmaybe not.
Here is a webpage with good info:
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Thanks for the reply. I asked as I live regionally. The local audiologists are useless when they discover itâs not their normal âwork related or agingâ hearing loss. Either tell me to see an ENT as itâs too complex! Or they try to sell me a set of very expensive hearing aid with a CROS option. Then they say theyâre not actually hearing aids!
To see an independent practice that isnât a corporate chain store with a very specific target I have to travel about 5-6 hours.
Options for what? Protecting your hearing in your good ear? Or are you having hearing difficulty are are looking for technological support?
What are my options for now - is there anyway to overcome or improve the current hearing loss?
Options if my good ear begins to deteriorate?
I feel like I am starting to find it harder to hear.
I am worried I will go from hard of hearing to completely deaf.
The audiologists where I am arenât helpful.
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If that left ear is sensorineural and since birth, then your current hearing loss is permanent and will not resolve. You are not a CI candidate. What do you mean by âovercomeâ? Are you looking for technological supports? You say your audiologists arenât helpful when they discuss hearing aids and CROS systems. What answer are you actually LOOKING for?
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I am curious why this person is not a CI candidate.
By the books I do understand but there are many examples of those with life long hearing loss doing well with CI. Is is about the odds of success?
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I donât actually know when the hearing loss happened. It was picked up in preschool. I assume it could have been from birth. My parents always told me it was due to a bad ear infection and flying in a plane when I was 2. That is clearly incorrect as I have 2 children with unilateral hearing loss, but less severe than mine.
I have read on some pages in this forum that are bone conduction aids and also CI.
Is a CROS or bone conduction aid better? Or do I need to try both to compare?
Where I live itâs a CROS HA aid only option. The Audi gives you a brochure that lists the HA the practice sells and prices. Tell you to pick one and they will order it in as a CROS.
There is no local ENT service. The nearest is a public one and it is an hour away. I donât meet the criteria to be seen. I would have to go to the city which is about 6hrs away to see one privately. I plan on getting a referral to one from my doctor to find out wheyy left ear doesnât work properly.
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I may be wrong. Iâm my area, if you were prelingually deaf in one ear and it had gone unaided, particularly through that critical developmental window in childhood, and are now an adult, they arenât implanting as they donât expect good outcomes. But there are still some hazy things around unilateral loss and CI implantation that we donât have clear data onâways in which it doesnât behave like bilateral loss. Once we have data that clearly supports beneficial outcomes Iâm sure things will change, but in places where there is public health coverage there wonât be experimental implantation outside of a formalized study group.
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So then if you do not know the etiology of your hearing loss and are interested in trying to pin that down (which I absolutely would be if my two children also had hearing loss), then you need to see an ENT. Why is that âthe useless audiologists sending you away because you are too complexâ?
The use of the bone conduction hearing aid that in your case would be is as a CROS. Your left ear is too profound to use a CROS, unless thereâs a bone line there that doesnât appear on your profile. But since the bone conduction aid is typically a surgical soloution, your local audiologists would have to refer you on to an ENT for that.
Your local audiologists can set you up with standard hearing aid CROS systems as well as remote microphone options. They can also just set you up with a left BTE hearing aid if you are interested.
What intervention is going on for your children right now? How old are they?
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Do you hear sound in that left ear?
Can you understand speech from that ear? This would affect how to be treated.
Thanks
Cat, I have no useful suggestions but want to add some support and what used to be called âpositive energyâ but may now just be called encouragement.
After bilateral stapedectomies for otosclerosis in around 1976, my left ear went to zero. Doc said the prosthesis probably slipped and stabbed the cochlea, so no point in going back in to try to fix it.
Iâve had BICROS rigs that helped significantly, but not lately. Asked about cochlear implant and the consensus was that an auditory nerve that had not been used for forty years was not something to bet would work any more.
What I want to tell you is, you can and will cope, whether or not your âgoodâ ear starts to go bad over time.
Avoid withdrawing from uncomfortable social situations - if people are bothered by being asked to repeat/rephrase or simply slow down and speak clearly, to hell with them; their problem, not yours. But self-isolating, which is my own natural response, is a profound error. Use it or lose it - keep trying!
Your âbadâ ear is about the same as my âgoodâ ear, so you just might benefit from a powerful aid on that side. I am not any kind of doctor so donât take my advice as reliable, just thinking out loud.
Hang in there. Not sure who said it - maybe the baseball guy - but âIt ainât over 'til the fat lady singsâ and we might not hear her anyway.
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