I'm also a hearing aid wearer, got mine at 42 and should have gotten them years earlier. Yes they are crazy wicked expensive and they are the best thing I have ever bought. There were so many situations where I just had to sit and smile at people, because I couldn't understand a word they were saying. Now I'm back in the conversation, truly wonderful.
Posting to follow. I need them, but having done a little preliminary research, I'm blown away at how expensive they seem and how dissatisfied everyone I know who has them seems to be with them. I just keep putting it off, but I should start getting serious about them
You should know that aids help stop hearing loss, so it is important to get them in your ears.
The other common issue is that people don't use them correctly. Hearing aids have to be in all the time when you're awake, and the first 1-2 weeks are miserable no matter what, because your brain has to relearn how to screen out all the background noise that you haven't been hearing. It's not uncommon for people to give up partway through the process and then say that their hearing aids don't work.
Completely agree with all of the above. I had to have my audiologist turn them down by half, then go back after a month and have them turned up a quarter and repeat until I was at the full "volume", not the right word, but you get what I'm saying I hope.
I'm also shocked at the amount of people who have hearing aids and don't know they can have noise canceling settings, these are a life saver. I have 5 settings I control with a button on one of my hearing aids. And mine are the bargain basement model. The fancy ones you can control with your smartphone.
Make sure you really talk to your audiologist about all your options and things your hearing aids can do and how they can program then, they can do a lot!!! It doesn't need to be just volume up and down.