DH won't wear his hearing aid

[RepeatingMyselfRepeatingMyself]

DH is hard of hearing. He has been given an NHS hearing aid. He refuses to wear it, partly out of vanity, because it is vaguely visible, but mainly because it amplifies all noises and he finds it uncomfortable/unpleasant.
This means that to have any sort of conversation with him involves lots of repeating myself, raising my voice to an uncomfortable level so it feels strained and often, even after all that, he misunderstands the key points which later comes back as feeling like I’m being gas lighted as he’ll claim i never told him xyz.
I have suggested he wear it for a week or two to see if he can get used to it, I’m sure his brain would learn to filter out some of the extraneous noise, but he doesn’t want to.

So am i BU in accepting he won’t wear it but giving up trying to talk to him, or should i just carry on as i am because he can’t help having hearing loss.

Tell him deafness can increase the liklihood dementia, so unless he wants to go into mental decline get the bloody thing on. Xx

www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-of-dementia/hearing-loss

He may need it adjusting, worth going back with it, to see if they can filter out some of the background noise, well worth him checking this out.

I think it’s very common for people to get so used to having dull hearing (and rather enjoying it) that life with a hearing aid feels uncomfortably loud.

Can’t he go back in and get it adjusted? It might be too loud.

And get him to go back to his audiologist and check it’s set up properly.

They don’t amplify “all sounds”, they amplify all sounds of the frequency that the person has difficulty with. So if you can’t hear high sounds (and therefore speech is indistinct) the aid will be set to amplify high sounds not low ones.

But it will amplify all high sounds. Most aids can be set to a restricted direction, so only from in front when watching tv. Download the hearing aid app onto his phone and play with it.

I'm waiting for a hearing aid and I've been warned that it could take a month to adjust. I remember it taking a while when I first got my glasses too.

Mine won't put his in at times , claims he doesn't need it !

I used to repeat myself very regularly.
Now if he say " what? " , I just give him ' the look' and don't repeat it .
He'll get the message soon .

Not all NHS Trusts provide Bluetooth hearing aids and some NHS aids are absolutely shite. If that's the case, and you can afford it, I'd go private - it was genuinely life-changing for my husband to finally get good hearing aids.

I also hope he does not have a single aid - that would totally distort the way that he hears things, and be very off-putting.

If it's a pair of decent aids, then I agree, get them checked, but after that, it's perseverance. He needs to put them in first thing in the morning and leave them in all day, every day and he will adjust.

He needs to wear them consistently for several weeks to give his brain time to adjust to the new normal and then go back and have the settings tweaked.

I can sympathise with his frustrations and yours.

If you can afford it perhaps book in to see a private hearing specialist.

Your husband will be given better care, more help and more discreet hearing aids.

It may seem costly but I’m sure it will be worth it for both of you.

This would infuriate me hugely. I wouldn't be raising my voice or repeating myself - he has a solution he is choosing not to use it or get it adjusted etc so YANBU I'd give up talking to him and tell him why.

Three options really.

1. Get it adjusted
2. Go private and get a more discreet hearing aid
3. Not wear one and increase his likelihood of future impairments later in life

I had an NHS hearing aid and I honestly hated it. It was so uncomfortable to wear and never fit right, even after adjustments. In the end I went private. Cost a little bit but worth it in the end.

I totally agree, btw, on you not colluding with him. The only way I convinced my husband to get - and then wear - hearing aids was to stop repeating myself, 'interpreting' between him and other people that he couldn't hear, dealing with all phone related stuff, and so on.

If he couldn't hear something, I would just say (loudly) 'get your ears tested/wear your hearing aids'. It still took a while...

You’re both being unreasonable, that as grown adults you can’t find a middle ground and an effective way to communicate.

Youre jumping straight to something he has told you he finds actively unpleasant as the only solution. He’s relying on you shouting which you don’t like.

And it’s not working.

Put your big boy and girl pants on, and sit down somewhere very quiet, facing each other, with good light, with no interruptions and have a sensible conversation about how to work things.

It might be more use of a family wall calendar. It might be ‘planning time’ regularly where you do it somewhere that’s easy to hear or where using the aids is easier. It might be going back to where he got them to get some more help with adjusting to them. Etc etc

There's nothing worse. Sometimes I think they don't really care that they can't hear you because really, only what they say is important anyway.

And I dont buy the vanity excuse either. They are perfectly happy to have a big pair of glasses on the front of their face if their vision is impaired but won't wear a tiny aid if hearing is impaired? The difference there is that not being able to see properly affects THEM whereas not being able to hear properly affects YOU.

Ergh, shouting and repeating myself coz some stubborn idiot won't wear an aid! No thanks.

Omg pardon the pun , but I completely hear what you are saying.
My husband had one fitted a couple of years ago, he was only deaf in one ear so only had 1 fitted. He refused to wear it , said he didn't need it.
Luckily he is now using it all the time, he said it took some time to get used to and was uncomfortable. He was only 40 when he got it so felt very self conscious and working in a very bloke atmosphere he felt he would get teased for it.
It was actually the kids coming along that helped, when he realised he couldn't hold a conversation with them.
So give it time. Just point out all he's missing out on.
I remember the first time he went to a music gig wearing it, the look on his face when he could hear music properly was worth the nagging.

Now we've got to go through it all over again as he's loosing hearing rapidly in his other ear.

He needs it recalibrated. I got mine privately and the brand is Phonak. I couldn't be happier. The top of the range ones are expensive but worth every penny

My mum was exactly the same, it's soul destroying as her carer a having to repeat yourself 8 times before she hears, getting louder each time and sometimes told not to snap at her when she takes offence just because you've had to get louder and louder (and thinks you're angry) and sometimes, yes, frustrated with her because she had a hearing aid.

Can I ask please when your husband was given a hearing aid? My mum received her first at the age of 60 she wore it for a few months then refused and said it did nothing to help her and continued another almost decade of refusing to get help or return to audiology or do anything else to help herself.

She returned to audiology after me and other family members getting very annoyed with her and received a new digital hearing aid for each year. I also bought her a Bluetooth sender...thing for the TV that sends the sound of the TV to her hearing aids directly so she can finally hear it, meaning that the sound can be off the TV to me, or at the volume I want to listen but she can hear perfectly directly into her ears. Also syncs up with her phone and they're a lot smaller and less bulky than the beige nhs hearing aids of old.

If this is the case for your husband would it work?

(she's not perfect now with the hearing aid and doesn't wear it every single day but she does wear it 80 percent of the time and it does take time to get the brain tuned into what it should listen to and hear rather than being overwhelmed with all noise all the time. Once you've had it in for a week or so it does start to get easier she says and by a month you barely notice but you can hear even whispers according to my mum. She's much happier.)

Has he got a hearing aid which also links to an app? The sound quality is much better when you can adjust it on the app to take account of the background situation.
Otherwise back to audiology, our local team are very helpful.

It's important that you start using a hearing as soon as you have hearing loss. Otherwise, you risk irreversible loss of hearing, which even the best hearing aid cannot compensate for. This is why a lot of older people say their hearing aids don't work - they got them too late, or got them but didn't use them.

My audiologist told me that the brain 'unlearns' specific tones when it doesn't hear them, which means that if he does ever feel his hearing is 'bad enough' to need to wear his hearing aid in the future - it won't work, because his brain won't recognise tones.

For instance, when someone says 'price', I hear 'rice', due to my hearing loss. If I didn't wear my hearing aids, at some point in the future, my brain just won't recognise the 'p' sound at the beginning of words.

As Hedging said, this also raises the risk of dementia. We went through this with an uncle, who went from being the life and soul of the party to just sitting in a corner, unable to have a conversation due to his hearing loss. The loss of social contact affected him badly.

Thank you all for your input.
I've suggested he goes private (he's just received a small inheritance, so he could afford it if he wanted to), but i think as a pp has said, i rather think he enjoys an element of opting out of family conversations.
And yes, because his hearing loss seems to affect him a lot less than it does me and the children, i don't think he wants to make any changes.
He has only got one hearing aid (for one ear), so maybe that's not helping and it was a few years ago he had it, so I'll definitely suggest he goes back for a review. Thanks.

With good Bluetooth aids, he could opt out all he wants. They can connect directly to a phone, and I know my husband is listening to music when others think he's just being quiet!

This .I lost hearing in one ear after measles as a 5 year old. For some reason they waited until I was 10 before trying a hearing aid. My main problem was ( still is) not being able to differentiate noises, speech is at same level as background noise for example. All the aid did was make me uncomfortable and increase all noise so no help

Some of the responses here are a little salty, to say the least, but there's enough good advice to help you both. It does take compromise and empathy on both sides. He really should go back to his audiologist. It might not just be the discomfort of sound through them, they can be quite uncomfortable if poorly fitted.

Just to add, hearing aids are not the same as glasses. They don't correct your hearing, they amplify what is left.

My husband still has to translate what's being said to me if the person is a low talker or ambient sounds (hard surfaces, crowds) make it hard to distinguish. I find women with high voices impossible to follow. Listening carefully all the time is quite draining tbf. I have privately acquired, very good, hearing aids but, sadly, they don't work miracles.