Anyone deaf or hoh?

[chickensducks&agoose]

I'm taking a sign language class, and have residual hearing loss from a lightning strike. I watch tv with the CC on, and watch people's mouths when they speak. makes eye contact really stressful, since I can't 'hear' them unless I'm watching their mouth... and I hate mustaches. I can hear my kids just fine, nattering away in the hall, but adults are much trickier, especially men, and on the phone is hard too. anyone else?

 

[annie3001]

i am deaf in my left ear. i had menegitis when i was 2 years old and lost complete hearing. my brother is hard of hearing and uses a hearing device. he married a completely deaf girl and ended up with 5 (all hearing) children.
i do use sign language.
I use it sometimes at work too, and that makes the hearing imparied person feel good.

oh yeah i have been watching tv with closed caption for many years now, dont know what i would do without it.

 

[Boyd]

chickensducks&agoose :

I'm taking a sign language class, and have residual hearing loss from a lightning strike. I watch tv with the CC on, and watch people's mouths when they speak. makes eye contact really stressful, since I can't 'hear' them unless I'm watching their mouth... and I hate mustaches. I can hear my kids just fine, nattering away in the hall, but adults are much trickier, especially men, and on the phone is hard too. anyone else?

Me, I'm HOH. Learned Sign a long time ago, but honestly, there's no one else around to use it with so I am so far beyond rusty it isn't funny. I can read lips rather well, and if a person isn't on my left side I can usually make out what they are saying without looking at them as my right ear is mostly unaffected. A hearing aide will correct my hearing, but I've never felt the need to spend that much money on one. Maybe when I'm older?​

 

[Blue Farms]

My wife is 50% in one ear and 60% deaf in the other ear. Her brother and sister are also partially deaf, all wear hearing aids. But they all play music, by ear , no notes. Our children and their kids hear perfect.

 

[equine623]

My best friend is hard of hearing, its a degenerative loss so she expects to be completely deaf in another few years. She lip reads, signs and the advent of text messaging has been a blessing especially with trying to raise a 13 yr old son. He has perfect hearing, but forgets sometimes that so do I and I can discipline him when he mutters something rude

My best friend hiked the entire Appalachian Trail 24 years ago and is a teacher for a vet tech program, so she lives a "normal" life but there are definite times when its hard to live HOH in a hearing world.

 

[Dunkopf]

HOH. I have hearing aids but I don't like them. I need voices amplified. Hearing aids amplify everything. They do what they can to raise the frequencies where voices are, but there's also a lot of other noise in there. They are way overpriced too.

I'm hoping they make some big gains in technology by the time my hearing gets really bad.

Most of my hearing loss was from artillery and M16's. Yes I had ear plugs. Hard to hear orders with ear plugs in. It seems like most people that have been in artillery have hearing loss.

 

[chicken_china_mom]

We have 2 forms of deafness that run in my family that make hearing very difficult, and naturally I inherited both, lol. One is what I think is called Tinnitis (I think that's what it's called), where you have constant ringing in the ears. Usually it's caused by loud music as a kid and doesn't begin to affect you until you're an adult, but I was never the kid to attend concerts, and my mother would have whooped me if I'd have played my music loud, lol, yet I developed it anyway in my early teens. The other form we have is a little harder to describe. If the room is quiet, I can hear what people are saying, and unless they talk too softly, I can hear everything they say. However, if you put in even the slightest background noise, the voice of the person I'm talking to becomes muffled. The louder the background noise, the less I can understand what the other person is saying. I can't read lips to save my life, lol. I tend to have to ask people to repeat themselves a lot. If I'm home alone (which I rarely ever am) I will put on the captions and read the movie or tv show that I'm watching. My mother hates captions though, even though she's more deaf than me, lol, so I end up missing a lot of what the people are saying, which makes tv viewing pretty unenjoyable for me most of the time. I've learned to compensate though. If I can't put on the captions, I turn the volume up. I know it will gradually get worse as I get older. One day I'll reach the point where I need a hearing aid, but I'm not ready for that just yet!

 

[Funky Feathers]

What? I can't hear you, speak into my good ear.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

I've been totally deaf for 20 years due to a bout with meningitis and a weak immune system. My WVU hospital worked with me to lip read and no one knows that I am deaf unless I tell them. Sometimes I have to have people repeat something twice but I have never had a problem with this disability. I tried to learn sign language but I was the only deaf people in a class of 22 people and believe me I was not impressed that hearing people were put before me so I quit! lol I just could not grasp with no one else to learn with. I do everything a hearing person would do to this day. I've traveled around the world by myself without problems. I have a deaf alarm clock in case I need to wake up earlier than I usually do. My computer is also my telephone as I do use it to stay in touch with family and friends. I don't miss the hearing at all!!!!!! Everything is peacefully quite now even the roosters!!!!!! lol I detest cell phones so I won't learn texting at all. I have house dogs that are a godsend with people at the door and letting me know someone is around.

You might want to see if your a cochlear implant candidate also. I did that but not enough electrodes were able to put into my ear to be helpful and it is quite expensive unless you have good health insurance or qualify.

I think there are a few more deaf people here on BYC.

 

[farmerlor]

I was standing cooking breakfast one day and felt a curtain come down in my left ear. In that moment, with no pain, no illness and certainly no warning I lost 100% of my hearing in that ear. I can't even get a hearing aid because there has to be some residual working parts in the ear for an aid to work. The doctors ran every test in the book and never could find a reason for my hearing loss. I do have a low immune system but there was no sign of an infection or virus at the time. Now I'm terrified that I'll lose the hearing in my other ear so I guess I should bone up on the old sign language.