From: Felix.Game@f125.n163.z1.fidonet.org (Felix Game)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: PURPOSE OF THIS ECHO
Date: 2 Sep 92 16:26:53 GMT
Reply-To: Felix.Game@f125.n163.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: FidoNet node 1:163/125 - FedNet Public Acces, Ottawa ON
X-Fidonet: Silent Talk Conference

Index Number: 24279

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

 On 08-20-92 VIXEN wrote...

 Hello Vixen,

        Thanks for the very kind reception. Your manner of writing is
        not at all vixenish <g>.

 V > However, I might suggest that you could "lighten up" a bit on the those
 V > topics or "things that "you" have'nt seen discussed" in this echo. Keep
 V > mind that some of us here have been around since the beginning days of
 V > conference and have seen the matters that you are personally interested
 V > and many other topics, discussed here in repetitive cycles.

        OK, I'll lighten up if you can assure me that I am not up
        against "dulled by tenure" participants.

 V > Although I am no authority or even greatly knowledgeable about audiolog
 V > and hearing aids, it appears to me, like all hearing aids are custom
 V > designed to meet the individuals need (At least these days.). So, I tho
 V > nothing special about my BTEs being precisely set to meet my personal n
 V > Unless a person has an ear doctor who prescribes hearing aids with an o
 V > and on and loud, louder and loudest switch only, that in general, all
 V > hearing aids were custom tuned to the individuals needs?

        Apparently not. As far as I can make out, each hearing aid can
        be put on a machine which will print out "its graph". I can be
        put through a series of tests ("say the word 'these'...") and
        have sounds pumped into me, and finish up with "my graph". The
        two will not be compensatory every step of the way (aid giving
        maximum boost where my hearing is worst). The best the
        manufacturers seems to be able to do is produce aids which
        will amplify a _range_ that I need amplification in. In other
        words, if I have difficulty hearing low frequencies, the
        prescribed aid will do maximum amplification in the low
        frequency range. It will also amplify other ranges that I may
        be able to hear quite well without an aid. I do not call that
        custom tuned in this age of almost omnipotent technology. I
        was going out of my mind trying to function in a boardroom
        environment where people were addressing me with mumbled
        questions from ten feet away and all I could hear was the air
        conditioner. It also happens every time I am in a restaurant; my
        aid picks up everything except the person across the table. I
        don't even want to mention all the things I hear in an airport
        instead of the announce ments that really affect me. (One day
        I found myself all alone in a departure area, and became
        suspicious enough to inquire. Oh, they had changed the gate
        number, didn't you hear the announcement? No, all I had heard
        was the lovely string quartet playing Mozart 20 feet from me.)
        I really, truly believe that technology today is able to do
        better. Perhaps we have to wait till the next generation, the
        one that is deliberately ruining their hearing with force-fed
        ghetto-blasters etc, become "the market" before it will "pay"
        for the labs to get to work on this problem.

 V > concern Menierres type symptoms related to allergy and chronic fluid in
 V > ears. I note that "sometimes" when my ears feel a little more "fluid fr
 V > (for lack of a better expression), I will ocassionally also experience
 V > "sound gateway." Although, nothing to the degree that you talk about
 V > experiencing. But enough so that it will suddenly seem like my hearing
 V > are working just a little bit better. So, I wondered if you had any his

        I have read about Meunier's; if I remember correctly, it gives
        you dizzy spells. I had a few - very far apart - and my doctor
        diagnosed the dizziness as "labyrintides", considering it in
        the same category as a cold virus - which settled in the fluid
        of the labyrinth. No, I never had any allergies. And those
        bouts did not produce any decibel gains.

        I am glad you understand my frustration when no one wanted to
        get involved with my "sound gateway" as you call it. What
        really bothered me, is that my grandson had tubes stuck into
        his Eustachian tubes to keep them open so he could hear
        better. The result was (as I would have expected) that he then
        was almost going crazy from the additional, unaccustomed "noise" he
        could hear all of a sudden. Yes you are right wondering "what
        sort of doctors I had"; I wondered plenty, but I started with
        "the best" in town.

        So, dear Vixen, do you really think I should lighten up? And
        do you think someone could answer my question about the
        purpose of this echo?

<felix>

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