My dad and a colleague both wear hearing aids and they both complain it’s harder to hear because everything gets turned up. I don’t understand what they mean, wouldn’t it all increase in volume relative to it’s initial volume level?
Side note – my dad just started wearing a hearing aid but my colleague has been wearing one for over 20 yrs so I don’t agree that the reason is not being used to the hearing aid.
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I am not an expert so would be happy to see an expert chime in, but I can speak as a user of hearing aids.
I think cheaper hearing aid models do increase the volume of everything. This isn’t helpful as sounds can “blend” together for hearing-impaired individuals.
More expensive models take the results of your specific hearing test and identify only the pitch ranges that need to be boosted, and increase the volume there. So if you can normally hear bass tones but can’t hear higher-pitches, they would only boost the high-pitches.
No solution yet is perfect though and the extent of hearing loss is highly individual, so they very well might be experiencing an overwhelming garbling of sounds even with decent hearing aids. I definitely shy away from any place with background noise if I want to be able to hold a conversation.
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