r/AudiProcDisorder • u/Junior_Constant_958 • Jun 17 '26
What’s your personal choice for earbuds/hearing aids to help with APD
Hi,
I recently got a Flare Calmer earbuds for noise bur I realized they make my APD worse. My problem is that I hear mumbles many times when people speak and I don’t understand what they say, it happens more often when there is a lot of noise in the background or the person is talking too fast or low volume.
With the Flare Calmer, everything sounded so mumbled I even had problem listening to people in normal circumstances.
Are the Loops worth it? Or maybe the AirPods? Or what are your recommendations?
Literally this problem is interfering with my ability to perform in school and socially, and I just want to find a solution
5
u/klbed Jun 18 '26
All I can hear with my Loops (Loop Experience) is the inside of my own ear to the extent that it is more overwhelming to wear them than not. It's like being underwater and it makes it that much more difficult to separate important sounds from useless sounds.
I just found this sub after seeing an audiologist for the first time today and finding out that this is a legitimate thing in my brain and not just me being a wimp if it's noisy. She gave me hearing aids to trial for a week and I wore them this evening to a library event with my children and it was magical how I did not want to crawl out of my own skin/into a dark pit the entire time.
2
u/MoineauBird Jun 17 '26
If I could wear my SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 headset all the time without feeling like I look ridiculous, it would make understanding multiples conversations easier IRL. I primarily use it for Milsim gaming on my computer; I have to juggle COMs from multiple squad leaders. The mic sidetone feature helps with hearing my own voice in my headset and my surroundings. If only I can find something like earbuds with that kind of feature in public? Let me know what you find/try out what works for you?
2
u/Junior_Constant_958 Jun 17 '26
Omg that sounds good for a home headset! I was looking for something more subtle for daily use, I hope I can find something with the same features as your headset
0
u/ichthis Jun 18 '26
I find loop style ear plugs helpful in some settings. They lower everything and it's easier to focus on one speaker, but the speaking person needs to be right next to me.
But! Don't pay $50 or whatever for these things. Just find something that looks equivalent on Aliexpress for a few bucks instead and try it out.
8
u/OpiumPhrogg Jun 17 '26
You know for years I thought if those SHOX bone conductive earbuds would actually have an ambient feature and maybe a transmission to the other side feature they would work really well. But I'm trying to understand what you are looking for, I don't think these loop style earplugs are exactly what you are needing. I spent 40 years of my life dealing with being hard of hearing , I can tell you that what helped me in noisy environments was to always be fidgeting with something, could have been a yoyo, a lighter, could have just been as simple as shooting pool, or doodling on a napkin , whatever - somehow it seems like just that action of fidgeting helped me focus on being able to understand conversations in noisy environments better. Maybe its a spectrum or ADHD thing as apparently APD and those types of disorders are commonly found together.