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Tri-State health care providers have an important warning tonight. If someone you love seems to be ignoring you when you talk, sometimes referred to as "husband hearing", it might actually be a bigger problem... hearing loss. Help from some high-tech gadgets could help solve the problem and save your relationship.
Local 12's Liz Bonis explains.
Mike Biggs had always been a very good listener, until recently that is, when he made an appointment with Doctor Amy Holland, an audiologist:
Mike Biggs, Patient: "Reporter says: What brought you in? Mike says: Mostly the encouragement of my wife. Reporter says: What was she noticing? Mike says: Mostly she was tired of me asking, could you repeat that please? Laugh, laugh."
Doctor Holland said Biggs had a common case of what wives often refer to as "husband hearing."
Dr. Amy Holland, Montgomery ENT: "Most people come in and say, I don't have a hearing problem. I can hear people talking. I just can't understand what they are saying."
But Biggs didn't want an obvious sign of hearing loss, so Doctor Holland set him up with the hottest hearing technology. It's literally a little lap-top computer behind his ear or what's called an open fit hearing aid.
"What that does is, it leaves the ear completely open and it only gives you amplification where you need it."
Biggs has a general prescription for everyday use.
"But if he's listening to the tv, listening to music, in a noisy restaurant, he has additional prescription in a hearing aid at his disposal."
Those additional prescriptions are remote controlled in his case with the touch of an e-pen. Now, of course, that might not be convenient for those of us that don't have pockets. So, believe it or not, you can not do the same thing, and control it the same way with your cellular telephone.
"So, you just put the cell phone up, you can control the volume, switch between the prescriptions, instead of using the buttons on the back."
Mike says his listening skills are now back... scale of one to ten?
"I think it's at least a nine... always... before I really had to be careful. I always had to look at people to hear them. I had more difficulty hearing people off to my side or behind me. Now, it's much easier to hear them, and understand them."
The remote-control hearing devices range from nine-hundred to three-thousand dollars. And in most cases they are not covered by medical insurance plans.
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