HA Report #8 Really Enjoying My Rechargeable Hearing Aids

 

Last week, just two weeks after getting my second pair of hearing aids, though they're my first pair of rechargeables, I returned to HaOzen for an "update." Israeli healthcare is extraordinary. 

Israel began as a "quasi-socialist" country. Healthcare is a government department, though there is a choice of "sick funds." The basic prices and services are the same, but there are difference in the "trimmings." Think of the variety of T-shirts, dresses or jeans you can buy, even in the same store.

Those who feel that their hearing isn't what it should be and feel the need for hearing aids are required to go to an ENT-Ear, Nose & Throat doctor to check if it isn't something medical that a doctor can't fix. If the doctor diagnoses the need for HA's he/she writes a referral, and the patient gets a high-tech hearing test. With that, the person chooses from a wide variety of places which have arrangements with their sick fund. The price and choice of hearing aids depends on the severity of one's hearing loss. We're given generally over a month to decide whether or not the hearing aids are both useful and comfortable. If there's a problem with them, they can be returned within that time period. No charge to the patient. That's why I went for that "chat." Some customers/patients need technical advice, and others find them so terribly uncomfortable that they're returned well before the deadline. I visited a lot more with my first pair, needing different size domes to fit better in my ears. 

Since I wasn't having any problem with the new hearing aids I didn't bring my charger or any other equipment. The hearing ids were in my ears. The audiologist asked how I was doing, and I made it clear that I'm enjoying them. It took awhile to get used to the fact that I didn't have to worry about packing spare batteries whenever leaving the house for more than half an hour. And I'm glad that I no longer have to remember to put in fresh batteries before Shabbat. 

I have the charger and timer at the end of the kitchen counter, and every night before going to sleep I put the hearing aids in the charger. The timer has it go on while I'm asleep, so when I'm up the hearing aids are fully charged. This also works on Shabbat. And if I'm going swimming during the day, I leave my hearing aids in the charger, just because it's a safe place.

I also told her that when I had left the clinic two weeks earlier I could hear the wind blowing loudly in my ears. To quiet things down I began playing with the controls to quiet it down.

Since then, the wind hasn't been heard. Over forty years ago, a neighbor taught me how to use a computer by saying one word, "Play." That was a time when most people had never even seen a computer, and I had needed to learn quickly for work. I follow his instructions with all new technology, yes, including my hearing aids. With Bluetooth I can control my hearing aids on my phone.

Don't fear hearing aids. They're very helpful. Research has shown that delaying the use of hearing aids lowers one's attention span. Not hearing well causes a form of ADD and worse.

Enjoy in good health.

HA Report #7 New Hearing Aids... Second Pair

Just a quick post about my second pair of hearing aids. You can read the saga about my first, click here. 

First to summarize my experience with pair #1... I chose battery powered hearing aids, rather than rechargeable, because the audiologist said that batteries last more hours than recharging. Since I'm a Jewish Shabbat observer, this was a very crucial issue. Shabbat is 25 hours long, Rosh Hashannah 49 hours, and during very rare years in Israel when they are three days 73 hours. Four and a half years ago, I didn't hear anything about an approved, by Torah observant rabbis, method to charge hearing aids on Shabbat. Since then, however, I began hearing that Tzohar had announced an approved method. 

Thankfully it didn't take me long to get used to my hearing aids, especially taking advantage of Bluetooth control. The hardest and most expensive thing was purchasing batteries. Miraculously, in the early months I received a number for free from a variety of sources. I consider them gifts from Gd. Also I was relieved to have found no real technical problems, other than finding certain sounds painfully loud. I did my best to manually adjust them, but I was told that there wasn't much else to do. My insurance guarantee had expired (without their warning me to come for a final free adjustment,) and I wasn't going to spend half the price of a new hearing aid, a quarter of the price of a new pair, for an audiologist to try better. 

As a result, I began investigating replacing the originals only at a new place, since I refused to return to where I had gotten the first pair. I also knew that I had to speak to someone I trusted for technological religious decisions to ask about charging them on Shabbat and Jewish Holidays. Thankfully, since there was no real rush, I wouldn't have to compromise on any issue. In the meantime, all sorts of friends and neighbors continued to contact me for advice before getting their first pair. 

I didn't start the process required here in Israel for getting hearing aids until I had answers to those two crucial questions. Siyata d'Shmaya, Hand of Gd for sure helped me, since both questions were answered around the same time. When at a class, a friend saw me adjusting the volume on my hearing aids via my phone's Bluetooth and asked if I had the same options she has. Hers were newer and better, so I asked where she got them and which Sick Fund she's a member of. Since we're in the same one, I got the rest of the information. 

Around the same time, I had a ride with a neighbor who was wearing hearing aids, so I asked him about the rabbinic decision permitting charging them on Shabbat, and he said that he has a Shabbat clock connected to the charger set up every night to go on and recharge the hearing aids as he sleeps. It's off when he puts them in and off again when he takes them out. 

So with those two important questions answered I began the process. In Israel one first needs to be examined by an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor to make sure there's nothing that a medical doctor can't fix to improve hearing. After that one must get a hearing test from a qualified audiologist, some of which work with hearing aid businesses. 

That's where I got
my new hearing aids

The ENT said I was healthy, and I ended up at the hearing aid provider my friend recommended. I was given a choice between a free (100% subsidized) model, which would be complicated to charge on Shabbat, and a more advanced model for a highly subsidized payment, which charged sans complications. Considering that we can only get the subsidy every few years, and I wanted the most advanced hearing aids, I was willing to pay. They cost less than NS2,000 for the pair, which is around $600. If my hearing had been worse, I'd get a better deal for even more advanced ones. That's how it works in Israel. 

On the way home, I changed buses in the Shaar Binyamin shopping area and had enough time to enter a hardware store to pick up a timer and extension chord outlets, which I needed for the place the charger would "live."

Considering that I was already experienced in controlling them via Bluetooth and I'm not tech phobic, I didn't need much instruction. I'm used to playing around with modern technology. "Play" was what a neighbor told me when teaching me how to use a computer for the first time...

I'm happy to say that I'm very pleased with my new hearing aids. I've adjusted to them, and even more important is that they have adjusted to my needs, thank Gd.

Hearing Aids Report #5, Just Because The Battery Works Doesn't Mean It "Works"

You may find it helpful to read my previous articles about life with hearing aids, updates #1,  #2, #3, #4, plus mask-tying advice for avoiding COVID and loss of expensive hearing aids.

For many reasons, I've really been enjoying my hearing aids, and not only because I hear much better. I love the fact that Bluetooth streams music, lectures, phone calls, etc. directly into my ears, and I can also control the volume and check the battery percentage via a simple Oticon app on my cellphone. At least I was able to do it until a week or more ago. 

Suddenly one day after I replaced a dead battery the phone and hearing aids stubbornly refused to "pair." I tried everything I could think of, following the advice on the Oticon app, including turning on and off the phone, Bluetooth, WIFI and putting in fresh batteries.

About batteries...

Just when I got my hearing aids I was offered some unused, though old hearing aid batteries of the same size, but an expired date. I showed them to my audiologist who said that as long as they're clean I can use them:

"They may not last as long as new ones, but they won't damage the hearing aids."

That was good news for me, since they didn't cost me anything. And not long after I got those, someone else offered me a few packets with a much later expiration date, also for free.

This morning when my left hearing aid began that "all out of juice" tune in my ear, I replaced the battery with the very last one of the "expired" ones. Before reinserting it in my ear, I noticed that the "light" hadn't gone on. So I opened and closed the battery yet again. Still dark. So I opened a card from the newer batch. You can see the card in the photos above. 

Again I replaced the battery, but this time with new one. My phone had been on the table with the Oticon app open. Imagine my surprise when suddenly I saw it announce that phone and hearing aids were pairing. Quickly, I replaced the other hearing aid's battery with a new one, too, and like magic, the Bluetooth connection had come back to life.

Such a relief. I feel grateful and also dumb. Shouldn't I have thought of that solution much sooner?

Hearing Aids Report #3 Be Prepared & Not Cheap

 

Hearing Aids case & batteries

You may find it helpful to read my previous articles about life with hearing aids, updates #1 and #2, plus mask-tying advice for avoiding COVID and loss of expensive hearing aids.

This post will have three topics, which I hope you'll find helpful. The first topic concerns us hearing aid-wearers all.

Be Prepared

As per Murphey's Law, one of the first times I left the house wearing my hearing aids, figuring I wouldn't be gone long, and since I wasn't far from home, I didn't take the kit with spare batteries. Yes, I got the battery model and not the rechargeable. That's what was recommended for Sabbath observers, since a new battery is supposed to last longer than a newly charged hearing aid. 

Obviously you guessed it. Almost half the time I was out, I was forced to listen to low-battery-warning rings in stereo. Since I didn't have my case with me, I couldn't take them out, either. But the good news is that even as they kept nudging that it's time to change the batteries, they still magnified the sounds. I should have at least checked the battery percentage which can be done pretty simply on my phone. Yes, they're connected via Bluetooth. Volume can also be adjusted very easily on my phone.

Hearing Aid Expenses

After purchase of course, which I'll talk about later, I have to buy batteries. They can certainly add up in terms of expense, and as I noted above, they rarely last as long as you were counting on. I asked around and was told that it's cheapest to buy them in large quantities online. Just as I was about to bite the bullet and put in my first order, one of my sons told me that he found a whole bunch of packs in a home he was renovating. The former owner has no need any more... Once we ascertained that they're the same size I need, he passed them on to me. I checked them out with the audiologist, who said that even though their date had passed, they seemed OK. He also told me what to look out for as a sign to throw them out. So now I'm set for the next few months.

Facebook Hearing Aids Support Groups

When I had my third meeting with the professional who tested and fitted my hearing aids he mentioned that I'd probably enjoy being part of hearing aids support groups on Facebook. Some are even specific to the brand Oticon, which I have. I quickly whipped out my phone and opened Facebook. Then I searched "Oticon hearing aids support," and suddenly there were a slew of groups to join. There aren't too many notices per day. Usually I ignore them after a quick read, and sometimes I even chime in with some advice. Hah! Me the expert! But to be totally honest I'm shocked at what American have to pay for hearing aids, thousands of dollars in many cases. People even get second hand hearing aids, which I find pretty sad, frightening and pathetic. 

Here in Israel we're all members of a "sick fund," and once we're recognized as needing hearing aids, they highly subsidize one pair every three and a half years. I paid just a few hundred dollars for the pair. And I have friends who got theirs for nothing from special "funds." They were new, not second hand.

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I hope this has been helpful and am looking forward to your responses in the comments. Hoping to hear from you....