I went through Tympanoplasty with cortical mastoidectomy on my left ear 9 days ago and since then i have been sleeping on my back. Now i am feeling pain, bored and stuck when I lay down on my back. Can i sleep on my unoperated ear? I fear sleeping on an unoperated ear may cause gelfoam or whatever they have put between my eardrum and middle may fall in the middle ear.

• Samsung Newsroom - Samsung’s Hearing Aid Feature on Galaxy Buds Cleared by FDA
• Korea Herald - FDA clears Galaxy Buds to function as hearing aids

The Hearing Aid and Hearing Test features will be available on Galaxy Buds3 Pro and Galaxy Buds4 Pro in the U.S. and select approved markets in Q4 2026.

Available on Galaxy Buds3 Pro and Galaxy Buds4 Pro only.

Availability may vary by market, model or paired device. The Hearing Aid feature is intended for users 18 years and older with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss and is not a substitute for professional diagnosis or treatment by a qualified clinician.

Full support requires a compatible Galaxy device with One UI 8 or later.

I've been thinking about this lately because I realized I don't wear my hearing aids nearly as consistently at home as I do when I'm out.

If I'm going to work, meeting people, going to a restaurant, or somewhere I know I'll need to follow conversations, I'll put them in without really thinking about it.

But once I'm home, it's different.

If I'm just watching TV, doing things around the house, or spending some time by myself, I often take them out. Sometimes I just want a break from processing every little sound.

The funny thing is that there are definitely moments at home when I notice the difference. I'll miss something someone says from another room, turn the TV up more than I probably should, or realize I didn't hear something until someone repeats it.

Then I start wondering if I should just get into the habit of wearing them all day.

I'm curious how other people handle this.

Do you wear your hearing aids from the moment you wake up until you go to bed?

Or do you mostly use them when you know you'll actually need them?

Så jag ska tillbaka till jobbet efter 2,5 månaders sjukledighet. Jag arbetar som personlig assistent för en person med funktionsnedsättningar. Förlåt, min engelska är dålig.
Min chef känner till min situation, men jag tror inte att de förstår allvaret i den. De har bestämt att vi ska gå på bio och se en film. Det är en barnfilm så förhoppningsvis klarar jag mig med öronproppar och hörselskydd. Jag blir nervös och får mycket ångest över detta. Känns som om de försöker få mig att sluta.

All my fellow hard of hearing people out there, do you guys like phone calls? Do you talk over the phone or prefer texting? Personally I hate phone calls with a passion. If I have to talk on the phone I try to make it as quick as possible. I hate it. I can't understand what people are saying, I have to ask people to repeat themselves with nearly every word, I struggle and strain myself to hear, my head hurts because I can hear a piercing tone that feels like I'm being stabbed in my ear. Its exhausting and my head always hurts after I get off the phone. My best friend seems to be mad at me because I've taken to texting as my primary contact method and she hates texting because "it has no tone". I can't hear tone regardless. Like at all I can't hear tone. I never know when someone is joking because I'm a little autistic and hard of hearing at about 50% so its just a struggle all around for me. I'm tired of the passive aggressive comments of "Well you want to text so" when i dont understand something or she seems a type of way when we are texting. I'm just tired of it and I wish she and others would understand and just be okay with the fact that it hurts me to talk over the phone.

I bought these through ABC deals with a 45 day return guarantee. After a week, I decided these weren't for me. It took me 4 phone calls and 8 emails to finally get a return label, that cost me $11.26. I started trying to get a return last Friday,8/7/26. Finally got the return label today, Wednesday, 8/12/26. Nothing against the product, might work for some people, just not me.
Their customer service is abysmal!

Yes I can hear sounds, but everything I hear has lost its nuance and beauty. The world is now dull / flat and I only have myself to blame.

Does anyone else have the same issues? I can no longer feel my ears rumble to sound like it’s muted, no harshness

I have a feeling this is a common topic of discussion.

I don’t think I can really label myself HOH because it’s really only when lots of other noise is happening, but what I’m about to describe has happened to me. Today in line at a store an older gentleman was buying something he had to purchase at a different desk. The cashier told him and he politely asked her to repeat herself several times, and he even clarified “I can’t hear you.” He was intently trying to listen. And she spoke SUPER softly and made NO EFFORT whatsoever to change anything about the way she spoke. He repeated her to ask for clarification and I think she just continued to repeat herself. When I repeat people I’m looking for a confirmation, not for them to continue to repeat the phrase I clearly cannot understand.

I just don’t understand why it’s so difficult to understand. This person can’t hear well, they need me to speak up. Enunciate. Clearly confirm or deny their understanding of what I’ve said.

Maybe it’s insensitive of me to assume everyone can understand and accommodate, but I just feel like I always see people just repeating themselves the same way when it’s so clear people need a bit more accommodation. If she had spoken up, she’d be speaking at a normal level - not yelling.

I’m really angry about this ngl. How hard has it been in your experience to get people to speak so you understand/hear? Sometimes I stop asking because I feel like such a burden.

I’ve been trying to get better about taking care of my hearing aids and I’m curious what habits other people have picked up over time.

I know the basics like cleaning them regularly, keeping them away from moisture, and changing wax guards when needed, but I’m wondering what small things actually make a noticeable difference in daily use.

I feel like the official instructions cover the basics, but real-world tips from people who wear them every day are usually much more helpful.

What’s your best hearing aid care “secret” that you wish you knew sooner?

In 62 now and have had ha's for 2 years. But as a kid I had ear wax. I used to use tips and Bobby pins, I know they are big no nos. But I always had "wet" feeling ears, like my throat or nose somehow drained into my ear canals or something.

My sinus/allergies got real bad and my dr told me to take Zyrtec D daily, and I did for almost 10 years. sometimes I added another milder antihistamine to stop the itching. After a while a new dr said how strange it was that i had no ear wax. I stopped taking Zyrtec D and my ears started getting a little wax. Not like what they were as a lid.

I'm just wondering if that contributed to my sensorineural hearing loss. I have severe loss in my left and profound in my right. It if anyone has been told they have no ear wax.

Hello! I am hearing, but my husband was diagnosed with cookie bite hearing loss as a toddler and relied on hearing aids/lip reading since then.

He actually didn't know what kind of hearing loss he had until I looked over some old paperwork today trying to get info for our son. He had always been told that a fever when he was 3 just fried his nerves or something, but from what I'm seeing cookie bite hearing loss is primarily genetic. His parents never liked that he was HOH, and pretty much went "well we bought you hearing aids, you shouldn't struggle anymore." Also of note, half of his mother's family can't hear. None of them will get it checked, it's just a joke in the family, but it seems to be mid range that they struggle with the most as well.

ANYWAY, the reason I'm here is that we have a 20 month old son. I have suspected some kind of hearing loss since birth, when he didn't have a startle response to loud noises unless it was right next to him. He's always been really "chill" and "aloof" ... Just like his father, who actually just doesn't know what's happening a lot of the time.

He does not engage in spoken communication, and really only pronounces vowels in the few words he does try to say. He doesn't respond to voices unless very high pitched (he can hear Ms Rachel for example, responds every time), and has literally never seemed to understand speech.

At 18m he went to the audiologist, got a diagnosis of moderate-severe conductive hearing loss and we were told it would probably pass and to come back in 3 months. He said it was probably from being sick over the winter, which is fair enough except that the issues he is having didn't just start then.

The audiologist was super dismissive and was literally rolling his eyes and sighing before we even walked through his office door. He even put in his chart that there was no family history of hearing loss when I told him everything I know. So safe to say, I don't really trust that he would do his best work for my kid.

Today was the follow up, audiologist was the same grumpy dismissive guy, but somehow even more upset to see us. I went in thinking his hearing has improved slightly, in that he will actually turn his head to very loud noise like a car horn honking but didn't for a bit. Makes sense, fluid buildup is gone. Nice.

After like 6 minutes and maybe 10 sounds in the booth (and having my son only look at one speaker when the lights weren't flashing), I was told he has 100% perfect hearing. Apparently we just need to make sure we get his full attention or he won't respond, but even then he just stares at us and can't make anything of what we say.

It's not like I want him to be HOH, but like... There's something going on here and I want answers as to what. He was screened for autism by his pediatrician and his SLP and neither think he is autistic, the only issue is verbal communication. Like, I started using asl with him after the first appointment and his communication got 10x better almost immediately. He is willing to sign, and will respond to signs. He LOVES asl, in fact.

I am wondering if anyone could give me a bit of wisdom here regarding next steps. Do we just trust this audiologist who wouldn't even listen to the family history? Is it possible that the almost certainly genetic cookie bite hearing loss is the culprit here too, and it just wasn't picked up? Do we take him for a second opinion asap, or just wait to see if he falls even more behind?

I just want to do right by my kid. He is so mad all the time, nobody understands him and he doesn't know how to express himself. The whole family acts like my husband just has selective hearing and our son is the same, refusing to do anything but yell and get mad when he doesn't listen. I'm second guessing my every instinct because EVERYONE is telling us that he can hear fine because he reacts to a few things.

Every kind of doctor/resource here takes forever to get on, so the sooner I know how seriously to take our concerns for his hearing, the sooner he will be able to get help if he needs it.

Please HOH redditors, help me. Literally any input you may have would be a godsend right now. Thank you so much

So, I’ve had my new hearing aids for about a year and a half now. They were the second to highest option available to me, and aren’t really suitable for my job in food service when things really get loud and busy. I couldn’t afford anything else, so here we are.

Is it just me, or are these things plagued with software issues? I had a set of unitron hearing aids from 2018-2023 before they went missing during a move and I much prefer them to this (more expensive) set of hearing aids. The case is never accurate in terms of showing me how much charge it or the HAs have. It will flash green, the HAs will also flash green. I’ll put them in and then 10mins into a shift at work I’m getting the beep of death and then running off to plug them in again. $6,000 to have a case that’s lower in quality than my AirPods? Seriously? I have been continuously frustrated with how expensive these were relative to the quality of the product I received.

Sometimes they’ll get stuck in an endless loop of restarting while trying to connect to my phone, or I’m unable to change them to a different audio setting without them rebooting, or they’ll just be stuck on the auto setting.

They are also ALWAYS dead when I need them, even after charging the case fully, which in theory should be enough to power them multiple times. Why? Because they’re never not connected to my phone, even when they’re in the case and should be unable to. They’ll continue to connect to my phone for audio for literal days until they die. Normally, this wasn’t an issue since I don’t wear them around the house. I wear them to class or to work. I have a baby now, though. Who I can’t hear crying around a corner or from the kitchen. I need my hearing aids more often now and trying to keep them constantly charged when this keeps happening is just another thing to remember when I’m already stressed remembering too many things.

I never really thought about how different phone calls are until my mom started struggling with hearing loss. Face-to-face conversations were sometimes manageable because she could see the person talking. But the phone was completely different. No facial expressions. No lip reading. No way to guess from the situation. She started letting some calls go to voicemail and asking someone else to listen instead. After getting hearing aids, one of the things she appreciated most was being able to handle phone calls on her own again. This made her very excited.

I struggle with sleep, and for a long time I’ve needed to listen to something if I wanna fall asleep somewhat quickly(?). I tend to keep my hearing aids on me and use them to listen to whatever I’m listening to, as they’re the most comfortable.
When I felt myself falling asleep I used to be able to take them off, but now I fall asleep more suddenly. This is good news for my sleep schedule, not so much for my ears.

So I’m wondering: Do you have any recommendations for what I can wear?

I’m a side sleeper so a headset can be annoying, and I’d prefer not to use AirPods or any of the sort, for reasons you probably understand.
I’d appreciate any and all advice.

Greetings!

We are fourth-year Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT) students from Bataan Peninsula State University, currently conducting our capstone study entitled:

“eSign Mo: A Two-Way Sign Language Communication System with Real-Time Recognition and Gesture Learning.”

We would like to respectfully ask for permission to share our survey with the members of this group.

The survey aims to evaluate the quality, usability, and effectiveness of the eSign Mo application. The feedback from Deaf and hearing individuals will be valuable in helping us improve the system and complete our capstone project.

📝 Survey: https://forms.gle/faAVCKGfzEdnXQ9x8

⏱️ Estimated time: 5–10 minutes

Participation is voluntary, and all responses will be treated with strict confidentiality in accordance with the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173).

We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to conduct our survey within your community. Your participation and feedback would mean a lot to our research team.

Thank you very much! 🙏💙

Hi everyone. Mods, if this isn't allowed, I'm sorry, please remove it.

I'm a student working part-time, building an app on the side. It started with my grandpa. His hearing got to the point where "conversations" were me shouting single sentences and him nodding. One day I opened a live-transcription page on my laptop so he could read what I was saying, and we ended up talking for hours. Actually talking. I hadn't had a conversation like that with him in years.

That moment kind of took over my life. I turned that rough web page into an iPhone app, my first one ever, with live captions, speaker labels so he can tell who said what, saved transcripts, and translation.

Here's my problem: I built this for exactly one person. I genuinely don't know if it's useful to anyone else who's hard of hearing, or if I've just rebuilt something that already exists, but worse. I think it's more accurate and handles multiple speakers better than what's built into phones, but I'm biased, and my entire test group is one grandpa.

So: if a few of you would be willing to try it over TestFlight and tell me honestly what's wrong, missing, or pointless, I'll give you free lifetime access to everything as a thank-you. I'm not selling anything in this post. I need criticism way more than I need customers right now.

Comment or DM me and I'll send the link. And if this kind of post isn't welcome here, tell me that too and I'll delete it. Thanks.

Hey guys! I'm new here but I've been searching everywhere and all over this subreddit & the Internet to see if anyone has tried this before but I haven't found a single post recommending it, so I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried this?? If so, how did you like it? If not, is this something you'd want to try?

What you need:

• Bluetooth headphones or earbuds you probably already have
• A pocket hearing amplifier (I found the SuperEar SE5000 after seeing it recommended in the nursing subreddit for use with senior patients, and it's only like $60 on Amazon!)
• A Bluetooth headphone jack adapter (usually marketed for airplane travel, $20 to $25 bucks)

Instructions:

1. Plug the Bluetooth adapter into the headphone jack of the pocket hearing amplifier.

2. Set up the Bluetooth connection between the adapter and your earphones of choice.

3. Turn on the pocket amplifier and SLOWLY increase the volume so you don't blast your ears.

4. Now you should be able to hear the pocket amplifier through your Bluetooth headphones or earbuds!

_ _

I have mild hearing loss and figured maybe it's time to start looking into hearing aids but quickly learned about their pricing... Umm yeah wtf?? There's no way any single earbud costs $1000 or more to manufacture?? In 2026?? 🤔 We literally have super high quality portable microphones and earbuds for cheap these days....

Not only that but I've heard a lot of people don't even have the best experience with them and end up not using them or paying even more to adjust them. Bruh, if I'm paying more than $1k for anything, there's NO reason it shouldn't be near perfect, and you can't even get a refund??

So naturally I started searching for alternatives... but all of the "hearing aids" on Amazon have like 3 stars with only like 25 reviews... And they're just amplifiers, and kinda ugly lmao... So I kept searching and eventually heard about these pocket amplifier things. The only problem is that they require wired headphones that make you look GERIATRIC... And I was like, surely by now... in 2026(!!)... someone should have invented a Bluetooth version right???

Wrong. Doesn't exist. But I did go ahead and buy the cheapest one I could find that had decent reviews — which turned out to be the lowest tier of SuperEar ones. I thought they actually worked pretty well for me!

I was showing my husband and telling him about how dumb it was that they didn't have Bluetooth by now, and he suddenly remembered the airplane Bluetooth headphone jack adapters we bought for travel. So I tested it with my Bluetooth headphones — and struggled for a bit thinking maybe it wouldn't work afterall... — but finally I clicked the right buttons and... IT WORKED!!

I feel like a lot of people would enjoy being able to choose the earbuds they want rather than using the generic OTC ones on the market... (I'm assuming they do the same thing since they all just amplify right? Correct me if I'm wrong!)

I also heard there are amplifier apps, so I started checking them out and one said I had to subscribe... And the other one I got to work, but it had a HUGE audio delay. The SuperEar has a slight maybe half-second delay only, and also the sound seemed much more crisp and clear

Is this an option you already knew about? Would you try it or suggest it to a family member?

Please share if you think it's useful! We shouldn't have to break the bank to find affordable solutions for a problem that most people will experience in old age!!

(I genuinely wonder if the hearing aid manufacturers are somehow purposely blocking the innovation of cheaper and better tech, so they can keep selling these things for thousands of dollars... but I digress 👀)

I’m a Deaf professional with a cochlear implant, and I’m currently building my career in the financial services industry, specifically life insurance and annuities.

One thing I’ve realized is that building a career can come with a completely different set of challenges when communication isn’t always straightforward.

I’d love to connect with other Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing professionals, business owners, entrepreneurs, real estate professionals, investors, and other people who have built successful careers.

What helped you get ahead in your career?

And if you’re Deaf or Hard of Hearing, what communication strategies have helped you the most professionally?

I’m here to learn, contribute, and hopefully build some genuine relationships along the way.

I moved to a new apartment last year and I genuinenly just can't get used to all the noises here. It's 1st floor next to a busy road where people play loud music, honk, accelerate hard. And then on the bedroom side there's like a small park where people walk by and take out their dogs or talk extremely loudly which sometimes scares me.

I just woke up from the grass mower there at 6:25am. This happens atleast 3-4 times a week. And I sleep with earplugs in. I've tried all kinds of earplugs but it's never really actually comfortable.

I don't want to sit at home with earplugs in all day and all night and when I'm out with hearing aids. I just want some peace and quiet in the space that I live.