Hearing aids and Tinnitus —Day 0 (Researching and ordering Lively Hearing Aids)
Note: This post isn’t sponsored by any company, I’m just really excited at the prospect of having improved hearing. Also, as with anything medical, talk with an audiologist, ENT, or other hearing professional before deciding to use hearing aids. These might end up working for me, but they might not work for you depending on your specific situation.
Hi again everyone! Unfortunately, I still haven’t received my IQBuds Max2 hearables yet due to production delays related to COVID-19. To help combat my tinnitus and improve my overall ability to hear and understand conversations in the meantime, I’ve started to use the built in Live Listen functionality in my iPhone, combined with my AirPods, to aid with listening and having conversations with my wife when I’m not in a close vicinity to her (I’m in the kitchen when she’s in the living room, for example). This does have some limitations, the main one being you need to have AirPods or Powerbeats Pro to use them. This also doesn’t help if the person you’re talking to is mobile and not carrying your phone with them, or if you need to use your phone while having a conversation with someone. I also wouldn’t feel comfortable using this in a situation where I was driving, and I have no idea what it would be like using it outside. It also doesn’t really do anything to help with tinnitus, it just helps amplify voices. Because of the delays for the IQBuds Max2 and not having a current solution that I can use for the majority of my day, I decided to try going down another path which didn’t lead to any solutions for me before — hearing aids.
In a previous post I briefly mentioned hearing aids as an option for tinnitus, however I was not considered a candidate for them due to the fact that my hearing tests all came back “normal”. After doing some additional research and having multiple conversations with their audiologists and staff, I’ve come across a possible solution that could help — Lively hearing aids. At first I almost rejected them because their hearing test stated I had no hearing loss, and didn’t really say anything about continuing with the process. However, I did notice that they specifically have a tinnitus treatment as part of their hearing aid offering, so I decided to reach out to them directly.
I was able to talk to their support staff about my situation and schedule a call with an audiologist, and despite the fact that their online hearing test said I didn’t qualify, they were willing to let me try them out. I specifically mentioned my tinnitus as well as my inability to understand people clearly and easily (which is suspected to be an issue with Central Auditory Processing and totally explains what I’ve been experiencing personally, see this article for more information), and the audiologist mentioned that hearing aids could be a solution for both. With respect to tinnitus, the audiologist mentioned that sometimes the existence of hearing aids alone helps reduce tinnitus. Additionally, hearing aids with a tinnitus treatment program (which plays background noise like waves or white/pink noise) help reduce the brain’s perception of tinnitus, which provides relief. The audiologist did caution that even with these previous success stories, tinnitus treatment with hearing aids does have varying success depending on the patient. With Central Auditory Processing issues, the audiologist mentioned that hearing aids can help reduce the signal to noise ratio when it comes to speech, which helps the brain focus on and understand what someone is saying. Needless to say, this combination definitely excites me, so I decided to go ahead and start the process of trying them out.
Ordering these specific hearing aids were incredibly easy since I talked to one of Lively’s audiologists already — just add to cart and purchase. As of the day this is published, the cost is expensive ($1650), but that is still significantly cheaper than other hearing aids on the market. Payment plans are available (via Affirm, or PayPal Credit if you have it and want to pay it off within 6 months), and you get free consultations with audiologists for 2 years, and well as a year of batteries, and some coverage for lost or damaged devices. You also have access to their support team, which I already consider excellent based on my experience (phone and chat available, including via Facebook Messenger which is a huge personal plus for me).
Lively hearing aids in particular stood out to me for a variety of reasons. I’m on the younger side for individuals who are considered to need hearing aids (mid 30s), and I also work as a software engineer at a software company, so I’m always on the lookout for technologically advanced devices that not only perform their basic function but can interact with technology in a meaningful way. The list of features of Lively hearing aids definitely got my attention — they are Made for iPhone (MFi) certified, which brings a whole host of benefits, including but not limited to audio streaming, phone call handling, Live Listen (with the same functionality listed earlier), battery monitoring, and other integrations deep into iOS. It’s worth noting that if you have an Android device, you’ll need to carry an additional accessory with you to connect your hearing aids to your phone. Additionally, not all iPhones are MFi compatible, but most recent ones are. See more here about compatibility.
There’s also a host of advanced features not related to what phone you have, including being able to automatically enhance voices, background noise blocking, and different programs to enhance hearing in certain environments, among other features. There’s a larger list of features available on their product page here.
The fact that you can do everything with Lively online (especially during COVID-19) is a major plus to me. Being able to have an audiologist tweak hearing aid settings remotely via an app as opposed to going into an office would be huge I imagine, especially when first adjusting to hearing aids.
The appearance of them is nice as well in my personal opinion — they are very unobtrusive, with the main component sitting behind your ear, and a near-invisible tube going into your ear from the main component behind your ear. There are definitely more discrete hearing aids available, including some that look like earbuds, but they are significantly more expensive and require going to an audiologist in person.
The thing that really got me on board with trying hearing aids out was their 100 day full refund policy. If they don’t work out, you can return them within 100 days of purchase.
Having said all of that, there’s a few things that are worth noting if you’re thinking about hearing aids to help with tinnitus, the main one being something I mentioned earlier. While hearing aids are known as a treatment for tinnitus, there is still the chance that it won’t actually help your specific case of tinnitus, or won’t help enough to warrant wearing hearing aids full time. That is something that I will figure out as time goes on, and makes me very grateful that there’s a 100 day return policy, and I think makes it worth it for others to try out if they are in a similar situation.
I also worry about battery life when it comes to tinnitus treatment. If the treatment is streaming from an app on a phone, I could imagine the battery draining more frequently versus if it’s something that’s built in to the hearing aid itself. This is something that I’ll look into as I have them.
There’s also the note about Android compatibility — one of the main selling points of these hearing aids is the bluetooth connectivity and audio streaming from your phone. Since these are MFi hearing aids, they work great with anything recent running iOS. However, full Android compatibility (specifically for audio streaming) requires a separate adapter. I don’t have an Android phone around to test this out with, but it’s something to keep in mind if you do have an Android phone, and would be worth talking to Lively (or your hearing aid provider in general) about if you choose to use their hearing aids and want that functionality.
I plan on sharing my experience with hearing aids (specifically the Lively ones) and tinnitus (and Central Auditory Processing issues) here over the next few months instead of just a standard review of them, since hearing aids take longer to adjust to then say a pair of headphones. I’ll be looking at them from a hearing perspective (reducing how noticeable tinnitus is, noting if speech is any clearer, seeing how things sound in louder environments), a technological perspective (how well does it integrate with an iPhone, how’s the sound quality streaming from a phone, how is the battery life when streaming), and a music perspective (I’m an avid listener to music, so I’ll likely be looking for ways to continue to do that, whether it’s through the direct streaming or headphones over the hearing aids). If you have any questions that I could possibly help answer, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to answer them in my next post.
I should be receiving my hearing aids in the next few days — once I do, I’ll put up a new post talking about my experience so far. I hope that me sharing my experience helps others decide if hearing aids are a viable option for them.
