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by icebraining 4020 days ago
Uh, seriously? Right now we have a huge public health issue with young people and hearing loss.

Isn't that the best kind of thing to use in a scam? Much more believable :) Parent didn't say "it's a scam", (s)he said "get a second opinion", which sounds like good advise to me.
1 comments
drzaiusapelord 4020 days ago
The parent very much suggested the doctor was being dishonest. Parent wrote: "Maybe they are trying to sell you on expensive hearing aids."

I don't see how anyone could interpret that in any other way.

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kazinator 4020 days ago
That is correct, however, I didn't suggest that the the entire public health problem of hearing loss is only a false perception that is result of wide-spread overdiagnosis, which was the bulk of your counter-argument to my post. (If that were the case, what use would there be in getting a second opinion?)

I wouldn't jump to any hasty conclusions based on being tested once, with one audiologist's piece of equipment. How do you know it didn't have a calibration problem or other malfunction. Bad gain in some analog circuit or whatever, and the measurement is decibels off.

Also, I'd have my ear canals cleaned thoroughly, and stay away from loud noise for a couple of days before the test, and any foods or medications that can affect hearing. If you're on antibiotics for something, don't book a hearing test. You want your real hearing tested.

(I was on ciprofloxacin recently, and things didn't sound right until a day after the last pill. My Sennheiser phones sounded like $5 dollar store earbuds, and I couldn't get a decent tone out of my guitar amplifier rig, though I played with the 32 band equalizer and other controls endlessly.)

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icebraining 4020 days ago
Suggested they can be being dishonest.
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kazinator 4020 days ago
Not even dishonest, but biased by an obvious vested interest, which subconsciously leads them to exaggerate the diagnosis. Some people have it as a personality trait to make mountains out of molehills. For any alleged condition, if you get three opinions from three specialists, they will differ even though everyone is honest.

You might actually have the hearing of a 45-year-old at 32, but due to some interpretive latitude and instrumentation error, they can get away with reporting it as a 66-year-old.

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