Better Hearing Consumer

Have you ever been drunk?  Done an Extreme Gorge at the buffet table?  Had a joking comment turn into a screaming fight? Any other activity that started out as pleasurable but then went out of control? How did you feel the next morning, or the next few days?  Nauseous, exhausted, drained, aching, sad, unsettled, nervous, angry or confused that you

Hearing care professionals believe they know what people need in order to hear better.  After all, they’ve gone to school to learn this. People with hearing loss (PWHL) know they want to hear better, but believe they don’t always get what they need from the professionals.  And after all, they’re the ones struggling to hear. Is the process too complicated, too

When I was a teenager and obsessed with makeup, I worried that mascara would be blacklisted by the FDA or Health Canada and no longer be available.  A more important worry, as I became dependent on hearing assistive technology, was that a world shortage of zinc would force battery makers to shut down. I am a battery-operated person; this would

I come awake but I keep my eyes closed as I wait and listen.  For a few moments, there is nothingness—and then it starts. First a hum, low at first but becoming higher in pitch as a deep rumble starts, giving me two sounds that don’t even have the courtesy to harmonize. Then, with a slight shift of my head—or

Some of my personal favorite, sure-fire ways to spark irritation in other people:   Choose not to wear your hearing aids or cochlear implant and then struggle to communicate with someone. I’m giving my ears a break and I want to save money on batteries. But c’mon, talk to me, I can read your lips. (Like this ever works.)   Bluff.

…I mean it. It wasn’t just an opening line to my hearing aid provider, so that she could come back with, “That’s old tech. Your hearing aid manufacturer has a great in-home kit, and a streamer, and lots of other neat stuff for just a few hundred dollars extra.”  Although, that’s pretty much what we said to each other. I

by Kathi Mestayer   Years ago, I read that if you lose your hearing (relatively) young, you adjust to it better.  That makes sense, given what we now know about declining brain plasticity as we age, and the importance of getting cochlear implants (for those who need them) as early as possible, so their brains are better able to adjust to

I just returned home from one of my favourite weeks of the year.  The annual convention of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), held this year in St. Louis, is a fun few days of hanging out with a thousand best friends and learning about stuff that will help me communicate better.  This year there was a baseball game

A couple of weeks ago, in my blog The Joy of Writing (About Hearing Loss), I recommended that people who have hearing loss may want to try writing: “…as a way to deal with the frustrations and anxieties of communication challenges.  Write a piece of inspiration that gets you through the hearing loss day and stick it on the fridge. 

We all know competition freaks—those people who have to be first, or the best, or win at everything they do.   It’s amazing what people will compete over—who had the most dramatic “I almost died” incident, who lost the most weight and what’s the best way to lose it (dill pickles and coconut water). If you tell a funny story about