[Audiology] Profound loss hearing aid options?

[Phi4Sius]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to say hi all!!  First off, a little background on my loss before
my questions:

Been hoh since I was around 4 years old (25 years now without blatantly
giving away my age...hehe).  Sensorineural loss.  Left ear, profound, right
ear moderate - profound.  Wore analog all my life in my right ear.  No
hearing aid in the left because I'm told that hearing aids won't give any
benefit because of how good my hearing is in my right ear.  Switched to
digital hearing aids in '04 for my right.

Digital has never sounded 100% right, no matter how many programming
sessions occurred to adjust it.  I didn't realize this until, by some fluke,
my five year old digital crapped out on me a couple months ago.   Tried on
my analog.  Even though it was half the volume level of my digital, I was
hearing sound out of my right ear that I hadn't heard since I made the
switch.  Everything was sooooo incredibly clear.  Music went from ok to
awesome.

Here's my latest audiogram (hasn't changed much over the past 25 years):

Right
250     500   1000    2000   3000  4000    5000
50dB    60     70        70       85     100     ??

Left
250     500   1000    2000   3000  4000    5000
100     110     115     ??       ??      ??      ??

The suspicions that have been provided by my audie is that I only got a
tactile response out of my left ear during the audiogram, rather than
auditory.  BUT, I could have sworn I heard the tone dagnabit.  Some general
observations made by my audie is that no hearing aid on the market will be
able to help my left ear with speech without:  1.  Nearing the pain
threshold, meaning that I would experience discomfort as a result because of
the dynamic range of voices.  2.  Hearing environmental sounds only.  3.  It
would interfere with the quality of sound on my right.

So, I haven't tried any hearing aid in my left ear as a result.  I try one
in my left ear on for the first time next week and get to see how it really
works.  Some of my experiences in researching things online have lead me to
believe that the above is not entirely correct, and that I may end up
getting some comprehension out of my left ear, even if it's only
environmental sounds.  I know it depends on my hearing loss what I get from
hearing aids.  But, if my left ear is aidable I want to try any and all
options that are available to me.

I guess my questions are all about my left ear:

1.  Is there a hearing aid that will help such a loss without any of the
above 3 observations taking place?
2.  Is my left ear aidable without going through Cochlear Implant surgery?
3.  How much of an aidable result would I be able to expect with any hearing
aid in my left ear?



Warmest Regards,

-     Brian
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/audiolog/attachments/20090424/9efa9afb/attachment.html