To find it almost unbearable being around my mum in this situation?!

[Ahhhhhhhhhhg]

My Mum is early sixties. She’s very youthful looking and takes pride in her appearance. Her hearing is generally terrible and’ profoundly deaf ‘ in one ear. Hearing aid been advised. She won’t have one.

Today we went out with my toddler and it was just horrendous. She can’t hear anything and I’m constantly repeating myself and she’s speaking loudly herself. I’m so so frustrated she won’t simply get this sorted as she doesn’t like the aesthetics and she says it makes her feel old. My parents are wealthy and she could also get this sorted privately very fast. AIBU to feel this is unbearable?! I never thought something like this would irritate me but I’ve spent the majority of today feeling worn out

If she can afford to go privately, my neighbour recently paid £3000 for his, from Specsavers, the new digital hearing aids are pretty invisible. They’re nothing like the old NHS ones.

That has fuck all to do with the fact that there is a massive of empirical evidence connecting hearing loss and dementia.

So no normal conversation, no crowded restaurants, no cinema, no theatre? I have hearing loss which has a major impact on all those activities. I wear my hearing aids all the time to counteract the loss.

And yet there is scientific evidence that hearing loss is one of the most important risk factors for dementia:
Hearing Loss and the Dementia Connection | Johns Hopkins | Bloomberg School of Public Health

OP my DH was very resistant to even having his hearing checked - he thought I was being unreasonable until friends started pointing out that he had a problem. Then he wouldn't wear his aids until I showed him the data linking hearing loss to dementia. I hope your mum can be persuaded to get some help.

eta in response to @BrendaSmall

My mother has significant hearing loss. She got hearing aids about 6 years ago but would rarely wear them. The audiologist warned her that if she didnt wear the hearing aids she would continue to lose her hearing and wouldnt get it back.

She didnt heed his warning and rarely wore them during the first 2 years she had them. She lost more of her hearing and despite wearing her hearing aids all the time now, she still struggles to hear.

She has spent about E10,000 on hearing aids but finds no matter what ones or what tweaking they do, she cant control the background noise. She can hear myself and my sister as we speak clearly to her but if anyone mumbles a bit or turns away from her when speaking of if they have an accent, she cant understand them, she has lost the ability to understand certain sounds.

She can hear quite well on the phone as they connect to it, but if I call her and she is in a busy environment, I cant hear her, only all the background noise!

Your mum should definitely get them as she will continue to lose her hearing and she may not regain it. My mum is very vain and was also worried about people seeing the hearing aid, they are not noticeable at all.

There’s loads of good options now. Even sunglasses which boost hearing

Mil has hearing aids , they can't be seen and make a huge impact on her life . My uncle has had hearing aids after an accident caused him to lose hearing in one ear and his other ear started to decline . The shouting at each other to try to have a conversation without them is so frustrating for both sides especially outside the house.

Thank you so much!

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

They have certainly given me my hearing back and mine aren't tinny at all. I plug mine into a charger at night, so they don't need batteries and I have an app to control them. They feed in to my phone and have made a huge difference to my day to day life.

They can certainly give you your life back but I don't see how they can give you your hearing back. At the very least your own voice will sound different. You can hear (some) things again, but not in quite the same way.

It may seem like a petty distinction to make but I think it's important not to have unrealistic expectations.

Thank you both - @SpanThatWorld and @LizzieW1969 - I went to the GP today as I can't bring my November ENT appointment forward, and the GP says the ear canal is red and swollen, so I have eardrops and shouldn't wear the aid in that ear for a week (until I finish with the drops).
I asked about compacted wax but he said it's swelling reducing the diameter of the ear canal.

I wonder whether some people are more prone to this, or whether it is a one off, but as it's an infection I'm certainly glad I checked - I've been trying to live with it, hoping it would go away if I took regular breaks from the hearing aid to give my ear time when it isn't obstructed by the dome and wire.

I'm wondering whether I should have a different type of hearing aid, but I think the in ear dome type are seen as best for high frequency hearing loss, which I have quite early.

I live and work in a language I only learnt as a mature adult, which makes compensation for lost speech spunds additionally challenging. I know the dementia link but it seems unfair as I'm sure my brain works harder to compensate - lip reading in a language you learnt from scratch in your 30s is surely as mentally stimulating as sudoku!

BTW does anyone know whether there's proof of causation rather than correlation in the dementia link research? I will try to dig out the original research myself, but perhaps someone already knows?

Omg my DM the same. Gets frustrated when I get frustrated. Went away with her recently, my DH & kids. She can't hear, he wont listen so the whole time I was running after both. So stressful and doesnt need to be!!

I am 75 and have worn hearing aids since my early 60s, I can't understand why people object to wearing them, I have a short hair style and still people don't notice them, and are always surprised when I mention them. I miss such a lot when I don't wear them, birds singing, etc. At first the sounds seemed 'tinny' but I realised I had been missing the higher range of sound. And struggling to hear conversations is exhausting without them!

My MIL is the same. What what what WHAT WAS THAT. And then when you need to say something quietly SPEAK UP oh I’m GOING DEAF aren’t I kids hahahah I SAID I THINK I’M GOING DEAF!!! Everyone is now like yeah, think so.

It’s hard work. Got to the point we can’t effectively communicate on the phone cos she just talks over everyone at top volume. She doesn’t want hearing aids cos they ‘make her look old.’ DH said so does shouting all the time but she just rolled on past it. She’s nearly eighty. Her mother was deaf and wore hearing aids. Dunno what that’s about but you have my sympathy OP.

This link, and following the additional links on the page to the most recent 1000 participant study, suggests that atm it is unclear why there is a link and there are three unproved theories under consideration (and these theories contradict one another somewhat). The study of 250 people with other dementia risk factors in combination with 750 healthy volunteers between the ages of 70-84 found that hearing aids made a very considerable difference to reducing cognitive decline in the group with other risk factors, but no statistically significant differences to the bigger group without risk factors.

This would seem to support the social isolation leading to lack of mental stimulation theory, rather than the theory that the brains of people compensating for hearing loss are overloaded. The other theory is that auditive processing centers atrophy - it'd be interesting to know if there are any studies using MRI scans to investigate whether this is a probable link to dementia.

I used to find that having to shout made me feel aggressive, like a reverse association. It was difficult. It was like my brain was being tricked into feeling angry, because my body was shouting :(

My dad is a very reluctant user, he’s reluctant to use anything he thinks is for ‘old’ people. DM regularly tells him ‘we ARE old’!! I’m overseas and FaceTime regularly, the conversation always ends up:
DF - I don’t know what you’re saying
DM - explains in brief
DF - I can’t hear you
Me - Maybe put your hearing aids in dad
DF - I don’t need them I can hear fine 🤦🏻‍♀️

I doubt she's that attractive in her 60s. Tell her to suck it up, she's old and she needs hearing aids

I doubt she's that attractive in her 60s

WTAF?

No,I do all those things, mines moderate loss, and I think it's only certain pitches I lose,or if someone's walking away from me. I love cinema,theatre and eating out,I do lip read to a certain degree,as I cant talk to someone wearing a mask

Agree it's annoying. My grandad was very deaf and couldn't hear anything through his 90s.

Mum (his dtr) has now started having hearing loss but seems to be ignoring it. She could afford private, or look into the NHS options, ..

You'd think she would remember her father not being able to hear a word, not joining in with conversations.

I totally sympathise with you OP. My late DM became very hard of hearing during the last 7 or 8 years of her life. She was provided with a hearing aid on the NHS but 90 % of the time she wouldn't wear it. She said it was 'fiddly'. I became increasingly exasperated when I was trying to hold a conversation with her outside of the home, when there was background noise. Having to repeat practically everything you say in an increasingly louder voice really doesn't help the flow of a conversation. When we were indoors,if I spoke to anyone else she'd instantly say 'What did you say?' automatically assuming I was speaking to her, every single time. Plus she didn't realise how loudly she was speaking,which would become slightly embarrassing sometimes. Once we were on a tube train,and a woman got and sat down a few metres away. To put it politely,it looked like she had a bird's nest on her head. 😂 My DM,in a voice loud enough for the entire carriage to hear says 'What on earth has that woman got on her head?'. We spent the rest of the journey with this woman looking daggers at DM and I.

I believe one in six cases of dementia are caused by untreated hearing loss, this might help change your mother’s mind.