Am I hearing impaired if..?

Question

What do I tell people? I'm not really deaf but sometimes I'm pretty darn close to it. I have meniere's disease, so my hearing fluctuates a LOT. I pretty much can't hear at all without a hearing aid, but there are days when (with a hearing aid) I can understand things fairly ok. Most of the time I have to be face to face with people to understand them (therefore I do lipread even without realizing it). But there are times (like now) that I can hear people 4 feet away from me talking but unless I'm right in their face I understand very little of it. Maybe 5% I have to concentrate very hard to understand things. But with certain types of voices I can carry a fairly normal conversation.

Basically with meniere's disease there is a lot of distortion caused by the inner ear, so amplifying the sound helps a little, but it doesn't get rid of the distortion. And actually too much amplification makes the distortion worse, so people don't understand that people like us need you to speak more clearly not to yell louder.

Answer 1

Tell people you have a fluctuating hearing loss. They don't need to know all the details, and most people don't understand that a hearing loss can be a loss of clarity as well as a loss of loudness. If you have difficulty understanding someone, you can ask them to help you comprehend better. Examples:
"I'm hearing impaired, can you please turn towards me so I can read your lips?"
"Can you please say that a different way? I'm having a hard time understanding you"
"Can you please say that again louder?"

If you are having a 'bad' hearing day, carry around a notebook, and if you are having extreme difficulty, ask the speaker to write down what point they are trying to make. Don't feel bad about doing this, if a person is unwilling to make modifications for someone, then they are the jerk, not you!!

Good luck!