Deal With Hearing Loss

JORDAN PYSZ / iFoundMyDoctor.com
Learning from a mistake made by her father, Joyce visited an audiologist to address her hearing loss. Seven years later, thanks to proper maintenance and regular visits with Dr. Duran, she is still reaping the benefits of her first set of hearing aids.

Following its creation in South America in the 1940s, canasta was all the rage in the US in the 1950s. The card game’s popularity began to wane a decade later, but it’s still as popular as ever among those living in the Gulf Harbour community of Fort Myers.

“We also have a bridge group, but bridge is a dying sport,” says Gulf Harbour resident Joyce Timberlake. “Canasta is much more popular. We actually have two groups, one that plays on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and one that plays on Thursdays and Fridays.”

In early March, the two groups got together for a tournament that was played at sea aboard the Celebrity Silhouette. The tournament was among the highlights of a four-day cruise to Key West and the Bahamas, says Joyce, 77.

“This was the fifth year that I’ve done that with our canasta group,” Joyce says of the cruise. “The tournament is always very well done and there are lots of nice prizes, so it’s a lot of fun.”

Joyce’s enjoyment of cruises and cards is due in part to a decision she made seven years ago to resolve a long-neglected hearing issue – this after being called out by one of her teenage grandsons.

“At the time, I was struggling to hear the low tones in men’s voices,” Joyce relates. “My husband accused me of selective hearing, but the truth is, I couldn’t hear low tones. Then one day, my grandson said to me, Gram, when are you going to get hearing aids?

“That did it for me. I went the next week to get my hearing checked, and I went to an audiologist because I didn’t want to go through what my dad went through after he bought a cheap $200 pair of hearing aids off some pamphlet that he found.

“His hearing aids never worked, and over time, my dad became more and more reclusive because he couldn’t hear, and he didn’t want to keep asking people to repeat themselves. I wasn’t about to go through that, so I went straight to an audiologist.”

Proper Maintenance

Based on a friend’s recommendation, the audiologist Joyce visited is Drianis Duran, AuD, of Gulf Coast Audiology. It was through Dr. Duran that Joyce learned that she suffers from what is clinically known as presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss.

“This kind of hearing loss occurs gradually,” Dr. Duran explains. “The process of decline is very slow, and a lot of people with this kind of hearing loss just naturally adjust to it because their other senses actually take over and help them compensate.

“In those cases, people actually start hearing with their eyes because the brain takes over. But that causes the brain to work harder because it’s trying to compensate for what the ears can’t do, and that often causes people to become very fatigued.”

In her effort to help Joyce avoid those struggles, Dr. Duran fit her with what was then some of the best hearing aids on the market. Dr. Duran no longer prescribes those hearing aids, but Joyce still has hers and they still work perfectly because Joyce is diligent about caring for them.

“Joyce is a perfect example of how much you can get out of a pair of hearing aids if you just do some very basic things, such as keep your appointments with the audiologist and get your hearing aids serviced on a regular basis,” Dr. Duran says.

“This is something a lot of people fail to do, especially those people who get their hearing aids from big-box providers. They’ll come to me and say something isn’t working, and I always ask, Are you doing the maintenance? They often say to me, What maintenance?”

Proper maintenance includes changing the filters that are designed to prevent wax buildup in the receiver. Wax buildup is one of the leading causes of hearing aid dysfunction, but a monthly change of filters can prevent that problem.

A weekly or monthly cleaning is another step that can be taken to keep hearing aids functioning properly. These cleanings can be done at home with a soft cloth, with a hearing aid cleaning kit, or by a trained audiologist or hearing aid specialist.

Dr. Duran also recommends a six-month servicing of the hearing aids. These are best performed by an audiologist who is trained to examine each part of the device to ensure they are in working order and to repair or replace parts that are not.

“The goal of the six-month service visit is to catch problems before they get so bad that the hearing aids have to go back to the manufacturer for repair, because that means the wearer could be without them for a week or more,” Dr. Duran notes.

“The most important thing to remember about all this is that by taking a few simple steps, your hearing aids will last longer, and you will continue to get the benefit from them that you were getting when they were brand new.”
-Dr. Duran

Invest in You

Joyce continues to get those benefits from her seven-year-old devices, largely because of her meticulous approach to maintenance, which includes some commonsense steps.

“One thing that I am always sure to do is wait to put my hearing aids in until after I have used hairspray or anything like that when I’m getting ready to go out or whatever because I don’t want that stuff to get on or into my hearing aids,” Joyce details.

“Another thing I do is, every night when I take my hearing aids out, I undo the battery so it doesn’t run out. Every month or so, I also make sure I change the domes (the soft plastic tip that fits into the ear).

“And yes, I do go to see Dr. Duran for the maintenance checks every six months because the technicians there do a great job of getting out any moisture that’s built up inside the hearing aids.”

During Joyce’s most recent visit to Gulf Coast Audiology, a technician performed the maintenance while Dr. Duran conducted a hearing test that revealed no significant changes in Joyce’s hearing.

“That may be one reason why my hearing aids are still working so well for me, but my hearing aids are also programmable,” Joyce says. “And Dr. Duran has set them up in a way that allows me to change the program for whatever environment I’m in.

“That helps, too, but that’s why I got these hearing aids in the first place. They’re very good hearing aids. They’re not just amplifiers like what my dad got, so instead of just making everything louder, they improve the quality of the sounds you hear.

“And that’s something I encourage everyone who needs hearing aids to do. Don’t go cheap. As I learned with my dad, when you buy hearing aids, you’re making an investment not just in your hearing, but in your family and your social life.”