Share your experiences

HearingFriends is a community, a place to share and exchange experiences, ideas and information – not only if you are deaf and hard of hearing but also if you have normal hearing and are involved with family, friends or work colleagues who have hearing loss.

We each have our own very individual ways of living with hearing loss, and with the help of hearing professionals and other support groups – especially the hearing charities – we can continually add to the ideas and little tricks we use to make the best of our partial hearing.

When you find something works well for you, sharing it here may help someone else. You may even wish to let us hear about your positive experiences with a hearing aid or some other device. No matter how obvious or small the idea or solution seems to be, please don't hold back. Don't assume everyone knows.

There are two ways to get through to Hearingfriends. Either by email (click the man with the megaphone) or by posting a comment on our blog at http://journals.aol.co.uk/jonh8m/hearing-friends/

Here are some to get us started:-

Idea 1

Where you sit or stand can make a big difference to the way you connect.

If you have normal hearing and you are trying to help someone with hearing loss you may be tempted to sit or stand as close as possible beside them.

However, it is easier for them to watch your lips if you are in front of them instead of beside them, and even if they don't rely totally on lip-reading, seeing how your mouth moves is always a big help in understanding what you are saying.

Idea 2
Background noise can be a problem with hearing aids. When the noise becomes excessive, try turning down the volume on the aid. This helps because it reduces the total amount of sound that the aid is delivering into your ear. The voices of people you are trying to hear usually become louder as they try to make themselves heard above the background so, although you have turned down the volume on your aid, the louder voices compensate and help you to understand what is being said.

Idea 3

First impressions can be very important, especially with someone you have never met before. They will assume that your hearing is normal (why should they think otherwise?). But if you have hearing loss there is a chance you may not react in the way they are expecting and they will misjudge you. This is why it is always a good idea to make the first move. While you are being introduced why not say: ‘By the way I don't hear very well'; or: 'my hearing s not very good'; or even: 'I am quite deaf'. You're putting your cards on the table, and there will be less chance of misunderstandings. Even more importantly, you give them the opportunity to think about how they can help to make the connection between you work better.

Idea 4
Making sure that the battery in a hearing aid doesn't let you down at an awkward moment: Many of us carry a spare in a wallet or handbag. However, it's easy to forget how long that spare has been there if we haven't needed to use it. If we leave it too long we may find that when we need it most it doesn't work. My solution is to carry two spares. And when the time comes for a routine change, I use one of them, and replace it with a fresh one from the battery card. Less chance for the spares in my wallet to be past their use-by-date.