The Dr. stuck them in (Boys!) and later, on the ride home, I noticed my tinnitus was simply gone. Mine is a solid hiss, like pure white noise, quite 'loud' in the left ear and it is annoying. But while wearing the hearing aids, it simply did not exist.
Doctor told me that tinnitus was not in the ear but rather in the brain, and occurs because the brain is expecting input from the ear, and so 1) begins to scan for that input harder and 2) will make up <something> to simulate input coming from the ear. Immediately upon installing the hearing aids, I began to hear a lot of little noises, virtually continuously, that I had not been hearing before, so perhaps with real input, the brain relaxes and returns to normal (OK, closer to normal) behavior. ?? Whatever the actual cause and action, it just went away. The funny thing is that I actual fell asleep with them in and 'on', and again, did not hear the usual loud hiss in the left ear at all.
Who knows, maybe it is psychosomatic. Normally I do not go in for anything that cannot be drawn, predicted or explained without using any words that are similar to 'magic' but the sub- conscious..... maybe that can be tricked. I only had the aids for 2 days and 3 nights (hey, like a vacation!) but they were very effective for my tinnitus. And helping me hear. And really helping me understand the words people actually say rather than the ones my brain makes up because they are close to what was said (though my words are always much funnier IMO). So the kids really did not want to watch a movie called Doctor Sour (which frankly sounded lousy just going by the title) but instead wanted to watch Darkest Hour.
Qualtiy of life is improved, seemingly greatly improved, with hearing aids in my case. Now the question is how much improvement and at what price? If I could get 92% effectiveness for a grand, or 96% effectiveness for six grand, I would go for the 92%. Hence this thread: where is that 'knee' in the cost / performance curve?
BTW- I found the same $6,200 hearing aids available on- line for just over $4,000 so that adds to the choices too. I would never 'go around' a full V.A.R. and buy on-line w/out letting them know and seeing if we could cut a deal. I would pay more for a local source that offered other advantages (loaner aids, local repair, etc.) but not 50% more, so somewhere in- between there may be the makings of a workable deal. ??
Brian
Brian, what do you mean that the Optican Ones seemed to “cure” your tinnitus?
I have mild tinnitus and it sucks.
When I ride, I wear a pair of Bose bluetooth noise cancelling earbuds. They are incredible. They help to keep the noise down and protect my ears, albeit to a smaller degree than actual earplugs. Plus, I can actually hear my music as opposed to my Sena, which only has average sound fidelity and does nothing for noise.