Better Hearing Consumer

For readers of my weekly column, some of you may have noticed my absence for the past few weeks. If you haven’t – well, I’ve missed you! I’ve been busy – being sick with Covid. There, I’ve said it. If you’re like me, you’ve spent the entire last year trying to do everything right. You’ve followed the guidelines, sorting through

by Abha Sharma There is no first memory of the barter beads. But they were the constant buddies in my school bag. A fistful or so was all that was needed. The protocol was simple: a casual remark, and my list of questions on the classes, preceded or followed by an offer of beads. Colorful beads! “Can I ask you

A few years ago, one of my colleagues at HearingHealthMatters.org wrote a column encouraging new hearing aid clients to make notes on their experiences. I wrote a semi-fictional article and this is an updated version. Hearing aids improve all the time, but the breaking-in experience doesn’t. However, the day does come when you realize you can’t even feel the devices

As we work to find ways to make the hearing loss life more do-able, we often turn to social media to express opinions and ask for advice. When we share stories or anecdotes on FaceBook or other social media, it’s understood that we are writing our own opinions, our own experiences, unless we indicate otherwise. I’m a writer who has hearing

Let me clarify the title of this article: hearing loss is not an ingredient in the recipes for good food, it’s often an ingredient in the cook. Since first writing on this subject a few years ago, I’ve received a cochlear implant (CI) and it’s time to review just how well—or not—this technology has helped me in the kitchen. Like

Hearing loss is a two-sided problem. Having it, is on one side. Effectively explaining it to others is on the other. We wonder—why is it so challenging for them to understand the way hearing loss manifests itself in us? It’s not that we haven’t shown our audiogram to the people who need to know—the people with whom we communicate the

Being deaf means different things to different people, and so they describe themselves in different ways – a little deaf, Deaf Culture, oral deaf, deaf-deaf, cochlear implant. But to a person who uses hearing aids or cochlear implants, there is a special kind of deaf. It’s similar to when you wake up in the morning, and you can’t really hear

Have you seen that video on social media where a young boy with color blindness puts on special glasses that allow him to see colors? It’s a real choker-upper to witness his instant, powerful emotion at seeing something he’d never seen before, a beauty that had only been described to him, but never experienced. And your eyes may have filled

May I be calm and without fear. Tinnitus does not rule me… If you have chronic head noise, you’ll try almost anything to get rid of it. It follows you everywhere, this tinnitus, like a biting bug that you can’t shake off. Science can’t figure out how to fix that bug bite that throbs on your arm. It bothers you

Dear Readers: During this holiday season, the editors at Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM) are taking some time off. However, we are not leaving you without anything to read on our blog this week. Instead, we are publishing a special holiday edition filled with what we call our Readers’ Choices. Our Readers’ Choices featured this week are the posts