Anyone have a hearing aid for menieres?

[Noitsnotteatimeyet]

My consultant says the hearing loss in my right ear is now permanent and wants me to try a hearing aid. Can anyone share their experiences? How long did it take to have an effect and does it help with the tinnitus and feeling of pressure?

I have menieres and bilateral hearing loss. The hearing aids help immensely! I can't cope without them any more, really they have made me much happier. They aren't a cure for menieres by any means but they do help. I have a range of tinnitus sounds that don't bother as me much these days.
Thankfully I haven't had a full on vertigo attack for a while now but I've still got horrendous balance and bump in to things all the time. Good luck with tying them out and don't be alarmed by how loud everything sounds at first, you get used to then very quickly. :)

@OhWhatAPalaver thanks for replying, that's very encouraging. I was feeling quite downhearted about it all yesterday as the consultant kept on going on about 'managing my disability' in the long term and how I needed to take things easy as my balance is so crap. And it wasn't helped by the fact that he talked incredibly quietly so I had to strain to hear him .... not the best quality in an ENT consultant

Jenny? is that you??? actually i doubt it is so marking my place for friend who was told exactly this yesterday.

Nope not Jenny!! But she has my commiserations if she's going through this too ...

She is having a really rough time. I think alot of her symptoms are exacerbated by stress.

@Noitsnotteatimeyet One of the gp's I see talks really quietly, he knows I'm deaf too! Quite annoying.
I understand you feeling downhearted about it, I did at first too. Menieres is a difficult disease to manage but it does have periods of remission, which can sometimes be years long. To me it seems like if something changes inside my affected ear then I can experience varying levels of symptoms but I haven't had a full on vertigo attack for quite some time, for which I'm thankful. How severe are your symptoms?

My DH does. He was very resistant to it initially and didn't wear them. However, he continued to have dizzy episodes and require medication. It got to the point where he couldn't cope at work on a daily basis so got new aids and now wears them all the time.
I can't remember the last time he had an episode and he's been without medication for 6 years or so. Not saying it's all due to the hearing aids - decent sleep and less stress are also factors.

Thanks - I was actually first diagnosed nine years ago when out of the blue I had an acute vertigo attack which lasted for 24 hours. It landed me in hospital as I collapsed when I got out of the car. For a month beforehand I'd felt like my right ear was blocked but I hadn't thought much of it.

I had a few more vertigo attacks over the next 18 months but thankfully not as catastrophic as the first one and I immediately developed tinnitus and lost the hearing in that ear. I got diagnosed with early stage menieres but after a while my hearing came back, it wasn't perfect but much better than it had been, and the dizziness and tinnitus subsided. I assumed that maybe the original diagnosis had been wrong as I didn't realise it could go into remission.

Everything was fine until January this year when I suddenly experienced hearing loss and onset of excruciatingly loud tinnitus over the space of a few hours. I've had two hearing tests in the last six months and it's deteriorated since January and the consultant said once it got below a certain level it wasn't going to recover.

I suppose my symptoms aren't too severe compared to lots of people's - I haven't had a full-on vertigo attack for several weeks and most of the time I just feel like I'm on a boat. The worst things are the deafness, tinnitus which is so loud I find it hard to concentrate on conversations or follow dialogue on TV and the feeling of pressure in my ear which is quite painful.

Betahistine did nothing for me and I've been religiously avoiding salt and caffeine to no avail. I think I'm feeling down about it as I thought it had gone away for good and now it's back with a vengeance and even if the rest of the symptoms subside I'm still going to be left with no hearing on one side

The tinnitus will calm down eventually, your brain sort of learns to ignore it I find. Your consultant should have referred you for tinnitus retraining therapy if it's causing problems.
I get the boat feeling, I'm really congested at the moment which makes it even worse but still, it's better than vertigo.
As for the TV, I rely on subtitles even with my hearing aids, sounds like people are talking another language otherwise! The hearing aids are brilliant for every day conversations though, I remember when I first got them I was in a pub afterwards and was amazed that I could hear what the people on the next table were saying!

Betahistine did bugger all for me either btw. I do find avoiding caffeine helps though, or rather I find caffeine makes it worse. I have a fairly low salt diet but no idea if it's actually helped or not. It's all trial and error. Good luck x

My husband has this. Hearing loss in one ear and wears an NHS hearing aid. Has done for many years. However he is not finding it very effective right now and just got a referral to see someone privately to look into whether paid hearing aids might be any better. He has an incredibly low salt diet (I cook everything) and no caffeine. Stress definitely makes things worse. He hasn't had a full on attack for quite a while now but boy were they scary at the time. He too gets down about the longer term disability aspects of this. I am hoping a better quality hearing aid will really help.

I would be very interested to hear anyone's experience of NHS vs Private hearing aids for Menieres.

Has he gone back to the NHS audiologist for a reassessment? My DH has no issues accessing the service when he has problems. He was struggling recently and asked for a reassessment. It turned out his hearing aids were faulty and he was given new ones. They will also update aids if the current ones aren't suitable.
I've known DH 10 years and I think he's had 4 lots of hearing aids in that time.

He has two referrals now - one for the NHS audiologist which will take longer to get an appointment, and one for a private referral. We are trying to keep our options open and see what is available.

Private and nhs hearing aids are largely the same technology but people normally go private to have more discreet or aesthetically pleasing ones. You can get new hearing aids from your nhs audiology department, if he's having problems I imagine they will replace them with no issues. It's also important to keep them clean and have new tubes every 6 months and moulds done every 1- 2 years.

All my audiology department has a drop in clinic every day for hearing aid wearers, you could check to see if your hospital has one too. I think they normally do.

Thanks, that is useful info. I will pass it on to him. We have health insurance that covers his private appointment and diagnostic tests but not the hearing aid itself so I would much prefer he gets a new NHS one but he and I both want to see what difference is offered.