00;00;00;12 - 00;01;02;18 Cary Hall And now America's health care advocate, Cary Hall. Hello, America. Welcome to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across USA, from Alaska to Florida all the way to Hawaii? My producer, the always perfect Mr. Darren Wilhite. I'm your host, Cary Hall. This is your show, America. Thank you for joining us and making us one of the most listened to talk shows throughout the United States. You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at AHARadioShow, AHARadioShow. We just changed all that stuff around and consolidated, so it's all easy to follow now. AHA Radio Show you can follow me there. Podcast Platforms TuneIn, iTunes, SoundCloud, Audacy, Spreaker, Apple and Google the website HealthRadio.us. If you've got a question, if you've got a concern, if you have an issue, I'd somebody reach out to me regarding disability of the day if I can help you I will I'm more than happy to or I'll guide you to someone that can. So send me an email if you choose at Health Radio Dot US. 00;01;02;18 - 00;01;19;08 Cary Hall So this is an interesting show today. In studio with me today, Kristy Campion. She is a doctor of audiology and I've wanted to do the show for some time. And here's why, because I when I have a hearing problem, okay. And I had unsuccessfully had hearing aids in the past. 00;01;19;25 - 00;01;45;09 Cary Hall I went to Kristy She did a great job. And then I started talking to her about the problems associated with the loss of hearing, especially for those of us that are chronologically challenged. Okay. You know, as you age, this becomes a bigger and bigger issue. So the purpose of this show today is to educate you on the importance of understanding, hearing loss and what you need to do to correct it. 00;01;45;09 - 00;01;46;17 Cary Hall So welcome to the show. 00;01;46;17 - 00;01;47;09 Cary Hall Thank you. 00;01;47;09 - 00;02;03;03 Cary Hall So why don't you talk a little bit about. Well, first of all, let me give you a little background here. So Kristy is her undergraduate degree at the University of Missouri. It's a bachelor of Science and Communication Disorders. She is a graduate of the University of Kansas Master of Arts Audiology. 00;02;03;11 - 00;02;23;21 Cary Hall She is a doctors, a doctor degree and a doctor of audiology at Salus University. She's been doing this since 1996. That's right. Okay. So you've been doing it for a couple of weeks. I have. So, so so just explain what being a doctor of audiology means and then let's kind of get into some of this stuff. Kristy. 00;02;23;21 - 00;02;49;19 Kristy Campion Sure, a doctor of audiology, is a professional that is trained in evaluating people with hearing and balance disorders. And audiologist is going to have a minimum of a master's degree, but they have changed that to require a doctorate. So that is going to where anyone graduating at this point will be a doctoral level. 00;02;50;23 - 00;03;03;03 Cary Hall So and so what is that? What does that entail? You know, being anaudiologist and what is it that you're trained to do as an audiologist? Can you go through a little bit of that? 00;03;03;04 - 00;03;10;17 Kristy Campion I am a clinical audiologist, but I work alongside an ear, nose and throat physician and. That's right. 00;03;10;19 - 00;03;10;29 Cary Hall Okay. 00;03;10;29 - 00;03;40;11 Kristy Campion Yes. And we see patients of all ages, of all issues. So it could be a child that has ear infections. It could be an adult with balance issues. It could be age related loss, noise induced hearing loss, anything that can be related to balance issues and hearing issues that we will evaluate with you hearing tests, they get a complete, thorough exam by the physician and then we proceed with whatever we recommend in terms of treatment. 00;03;40;28 - 00;03;49;15 Cary Hall So basically the first thing is to identify what the problem is, right. Okay. Whether it is a hearing loss issue or vertigo. 00;03;49;16 - 00;03;49;26 Kristy Campion Right. 00;03;50;05 - 00;04;02;03 Cary Hall Okay. Or but my granddaughter has had I don't care. I don't know how many ear tube, you know, ear infection issues. That's all part of what you all do. 00;04;02;03 - 00;04;27;27 Kristy Campion Exactly. And those things are all very common and that's exactly what we see. So somebody can make an appointment. They can see both the physician and myself on the same day. The physician will do the exam, take a history, medical history, health history, kind of determine what's going on. I will test their hearing, do any other type of evaluation that's necessary to determine what's going on. And then we'll proceed with what we think is going to help. 00;04;28;09 - 00;04;46;21 Cary Hall So talk a little bit about the testing, because the testing was interesting. You you you go in this booth, okay? It's it's kind of like a kind of like a radio studio, but not a studio. You're in a little booth like a phone booth. Right. And it's totally sealed. Talked about. It was interesting. I'd never done testing like. 00;04;47;01 - 00;06;03;20 Kristy Campion Yeah, it's comprehensive. We're going to put you in a booth. It's sound treated, not exactly soundproof. It's untreated and we go through a series of things I will ask you to repeat backwards, and that's going to help me kind of identify how soft we can get with speech to identify kind of the lowest level that you're going to hear. We're going to test different tones and different frequencies. So I will present a louder tone at one frequency and get softer and softer. And the patient just identifies by answering if they hear that tone and we'll go through all of the frequencies that we typically test depending upon the age. Sometimes if it's a child, we can't get quite as many frequencies as we would if it was an adult. But we will test air conduction, which means we're putting headphones on. The sound is going through the ear canal, it is going through the eardrum to get to the inner ear. And then we do bone conduction testing and that's when I put the piece behind the ear, which freaks everybody out because they're not quite sure what's happening. But that's going to stimulate the organ of hearing by going through the mastoid cavity. So there's different types of tests that we do that will help us identify where the hearing loss is coming from, what type of hearing loss that it is. 00;06;04;07 - 00;06;33;26 Cary Hall So I'm going to share a little some with the audience here. So I had hearing aids before I went to see Kristy and before I went to see Doctor Thornton. And I went to one of these hearing aid places that you see in the newspaper with the big ad, etc.. And I had a test. It wasn't that test. Okay? And it wasn't as thorough. And I was quite surprised, frankly, when I when I went to Kristy at the thoroughness of this test, because it took a while. Yeah. Yeah. What does it take? About 20, 30 minutes or. 00;06;34;25 - 00;07;19;05 Kristy Campion 15 minutes typically, depending upon what all we need to do. But yeah, it's extensive. So we're really making sure we're looking at all the different parts of the ear and making sure you are able to discriminate speech sounds. There are some patients that may have a mild loss and don't understand speech very well. There can be somebody that has a severe hearing loss and their ability to understand the difference between, you know, S, K T all of those different consonants is very, very challenging. And that's what we're looking at of somebody coming in because they have an age related type of hearing loss. We want to see if. Okay, well, what can they hear? How soft can they hear this different tone at different frequencies? And if I say a word, can they understand it? 00;07;19;18 - 00;07;33;25 Cary Hall And all of it you did with me. Yes. Yeah. And they determined that I had mild hearing loss, but at certain levels, if I remember correctly. Right. But but we were able to identify all that that was right. Those are things that I had never heard before. 00;07;33;25 - 00;07;41;08 Kristy Campion Yes. Yeah. I don't know that people always value the the comprehension, you know, of the testing and what it's going to tell us. 00;07;41;19 - 00;08;25;08 Cary Hall Well, I've added a lot because I sent my right after right after I did my I said Lauren and she had the testing done. Exactly. And has ordered new hearing aids as well. But the point is, and I think that's really what I kind of want to get across to the audience here is that, you know, the level of thoroughness here is the one thing and I said would after I'd finish and I came home and I was sitting down talking to my wife for dinner, I said, Boy, I said, they are really thorough. Well, I mean, it's just I was a pressed okay. And I didn't even have the hearing gauge. And I all I had done was go through the testing part and we were then going to decide what we were going to do about hearing aids. But it was pretty interesting to me and I thought it was very different. And I really appreciate the fact that that you were as thorough as you were. 00;08;25;14 - 00;08;35;03 Kristy Campion And that's one benefit of going to an audiologist and going to an ear, nose and throat physician. It's going to be very comprehensive. You're getting a full ear exam. 00;08;35;03 - 00;08;59;06 Cary Hall We'll be right back after the break with more. Stay tuned. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network coast to coast across the USA on podcast platforms TuneIn, iTunes, SoundCloud, Audacy, Spreaker, Apple Play and Google. So we're on all of those platforms. We're getting a lot of people listening to shows, stay right there. We've got more. 00;08;59;17 - 00;09;13;02 Speaker 3 ♪ Oh tell me darling, am I right, am I... ♪ 00;09;13;02 - 00;10;03;07 Cary Hall Welcome back. You're listening to America's health care advocates show broadcasting coast to coast across the U.S. You're on the HIA radio network. You can find out more about us by going to the website. HealthRadio.us. HealthRadio.us. If you've got a question, send me an email. I will get back and I will help you. My producer, the always perfect Mr. Darren Wilhite. I'm your host Carrie Hall, in studio with me, Kristy Campion. She is a doctor of audiology. She practices with Dr. Parker Thornton here in Overland Park and she is my audiologist and Dr. Thornton is my doctor for hearing. And we're doing this show today because this is really important to people, especially, as I said, for all of you seasoned citizens out there like me, this is a natural progression of you're going to have some hearing loss more than likely, you know, and if you don't pay attention to it, here's the part. 00;10;03;17 - 00;10;56;00 Cary Hall And I'm going to have Kristy talk about this. The longer you let this go, the worse it gets, okay? And the more difficult it's going to become to restore your hearing. So we're going to talk a little bit about that if you want to reach out to her or Dr. Thornton, the website is fptmd.com. fptmd.com. Or you can call 913-261-2223. So let's just jump into that, okay? Because this this is this is the thing that there is there's a connection between loss of hearing and things like dementia. I told you, I've got a friend in California have had for a long time who literally has almost completely lost his hearing and is completely withdrawn. And his family is like, we don't even know this guy more. So talk about the connection with all because it's a lot more than just not hearing the damn TV. Okay, so talk a little bit about that. 00;10;56;14 - 00;11;06;11 Kristy Campion Hearing loss, if left untreated, can definitely lead to anxiety issues, depression. And what they have really done a lot of studies on lately is the link to dementia. 00;11;06;20 - 00;11;07;24 Cary Hall So it's scary. Yeah. 00;11;07;24 - 00;12;07;25 Kristy Campion It is scary and they're kind of all related. So what typically happens, at least what I see with my patients is that a whether they're going to the grocery store, whether they're going to a party, whether they're just sitting there talking to their spouse, it can be a cause of anxiety because they're misunderstanding. They get embarrassed. So they don't want to go to, you know, a group function, a party, because they're misunderstanding what people are saying. So that tends to make them want to withdraw, not to do things with people. So that's leading to social isolation. Isolation, and that's not good. That's going to lead to depression. So if you are going with this hearing loss and you're not getting stimulation to your brain, you're isolating yourself from loved ones, from social gatherings, it's it can lead to dementia. Your brain's not getting the information it's supposed to get. Your brain is working harder to hear, which is causing other parts of the brain to lose some function. So all of those things can occur. And I see it all the time. And the longer you wait. 00;12;08;13 - 00;12;12;07 Cary Hall Yes, that's yeah, I want I really want to get hard. 00;12;12;08 - 00;12;16;14 Kristy Campion The longer you wait, the harder it is to get that back. So. 00;12;17;11 - 00;12;18;22 Cary Hall Or you might not get it back. 00;12;18;22 - 00;13;01;02 Kristy Campion Yeah. You're not restoring your hearing when you put a hearing aid in. But what you're doing is you're preserving that ability to hear environmental sounds hear speech sounds and understand them. So if I see a patient that I fit with a hearing aid when their losses are mild, they are going to have a much easier time adjusting to that hearing aid. Their brain has not forgotten what it sounds like when ice falls out of the icemaker, when you turn on the faucet. What that sounds like when I have patients that wait till their losses are severe to profound and you put a hearing aid in their ear, they are very overwhelmed and disturbed by some of those noises. They can't tolerate them. They don't want to wear the hearing aids. Really turn it down. 00;13;01;02 - 00;13;02;05 Cary Hall I never thought of that. Right. 00;13;02;06 - 00;14;09;23 Kristy Campion And the hearing aids have come a long way. Oh, ten, 15 years ago, when you would put a hearing aid in and you turn the faucet on, I mean, it's going to blast you out. Now, they do a much better job of being able to compress noisy type of sounds, anything that is a background noise and preserve the speech, amplify the speech better. So all of the hearing aids are trying to improve the signal to noise ratio, basically meaning that you walk into a place that's noisy. The hearing aid is going to try to identify what it considers to be noise and what is speech. Try to pull the speech up and turn down the noise. When you've gone 40, 50 years with the hearing loss that has not been addressed and you put a hearing aid in and you try to bring all that sound back in, it's overwhelming. It's hard, and it's harder for you at that point to separate out the speech and the noise because you're so overwhelmed by all the background noise. So that's where, you know, you really need to be professionally fit with a hearing aid. And starting earlier when your losses mild versus when you're hearing losses severe makes a huge difference. 00;14;09;28 - 00;14;41;20 Cary Hall So if your wife's telling you, quit turning up the television or you didn't hear me, etc., etc., men are hard headed okay and she readily agrees with this. Do you catch that? Okay. Men are hard headed. You cannot let this just go because it it, you know, it affects your cognitive abilities and dexterity loss. The list goes on and on and on. On and on. And it's, it it's easily stopped, maybe even reversed. No, I. 00;14;41;20 - 00;15;07;28 Kristy Campion Wouldn't say so much reverse because as you age, your hearing is still going to drop. You know, you're not going to stop any age related type of hearing loss that's going to continue. But like I said, you're going to be able to better maintain that ability to recognize sounds. Your brain is going to recognize what this term factors sound is that you haven't heard in years. You're going to be able to identify speech sounds and be able to tell the difference between words and get the clarity. 00;15;08;12 - 00;16;08;04 Cary Hall And so and so I have it's called a Phonak, is that correct? That's right. It's a one. So and it's a wonderful device. I it it is so different than what I had before from the hearing aid people that that the you know advertise it full page ads in the newspaper type of thing. This is like night and day. Okay. And this is important to me because obviously I do radio, right? So it's really a good idea to be able to hear the people in the studio with you. But the thing that used to drive me nuts and the improvement when you talk about improvement, I got that said, I got that hearing aid. I only have one ear, folks. So I got that hearing aid probably four years ago, three years ago, something like that. And I didn't like it and it only work when I absolutely had to. I would wear it out if I had to go to a restaurant or if I was in a business meeting. But I didn't wear it around the house. I didn't like the thing. I couldn't adjust it the way I wanted to. If I went into a restaurant, it picked up so much background noise. He was driving me nuts. This hearing aid is like night and day. It's a. 00;16;08;04 - 00;16;08;17 Kristy Campion Very good device.. 00;16;08;17 - 00;17;08;06 Cary Hall Yeah, it's got. First of all, it can be set on automatic. Then you and I set up a couple of settings that I wanted done, and then it's got a restaurant setting, it's got a speech and noise thing. And I'm going to tell you something. You can push the button on the on your phone and change to those different settings and you can tell the difference. Yes. If I'm having trouble understanding something on television instead of closed, all I do is I hit speech and noise and immediately I can understand the speech a lot better than I can if I don't do that. Yes. So what I love about this thing is the flexibility of it and how it works and how I can be in a restaurant and I don't have to listen to the guy two tables down for me, you know, talk about whatever he's talking about what I'm trying to have a conversation with somebody either. Either a business lunch in or I'm out with my family or whatever the case may be. So that's part of what I think is is so at least for me, that was the biggest difference. I experienced when I got this thing. I told you the story before we started the show. I think my wife Lauren told you story, too. 00;17;08;13 - 00;17;59;29 Cary Hall I was on a trip to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I had a room that in the hotel that was facing the freeway, I went to sleep with this thing in my ear. I didn't even realize I had it. I had put a earplug in to keep the noise of the freeway out. And I woke up in the morning I think was still in my ear. That's how comfortable it has gotten for me, and I absolutely didn't like what I was doing before this thing. It's on, I have it and I have it in my ear the entire for the entire day. Only time I take it out is when I go to bed. Hopefully I remember. Do that. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network, coast to coast across the U.S., the doctors in the house. Stay tuned. We've got more. ♪ 00;17;59;29 - 00;18;12;21 Cary Hall Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate Show broadcasting coast to coast across USA here on the HIA Radio Network. You can find out more about us at the website Health Radio DOT U.S. My producer, Mr. Darren Wilhite. 00;18;12;21 - 00;19;21;04 Cary Hall I'm your host Cary Hall in studio with me, Kristy Campion. She is a doctor of audiology. She practices at Dr. Parker Thornton's office. And their website, if you are interested, is fptmd.com, fprmd.com. Phone number 913-261-2223. We're trying to educate you. I'm running this nationally, obviously, I don't expect you to fly into Kansas City to see Kristy. But the point is, I think it's important for people to hear this message, understand that a lot of us have this problem and if it's not treated, you just heard her say it gets worse. Okay. You know, you get a good hearing aid like the one that I've got, which is really quite remarkable. And it makes a huge difference. I mean, just everyday, ordinary things. Yes. It just makes a big difference. It does. I think it makes a big difference to the quality of life. So. Right. So I've referred to, you know, these hearing aid places, okay. They're whole. There are two or three different groups out there that do this. It's very different that that intake procedure and having that testing was significantly different than what I did with you. 00;19;21;04 - 00;19;44;12 Cary Hall It took it didn't take nearly as long. And then the other thing that I did, I didn't particularly care for was I felt like I was they were trying to sell me a used car, which I didn't like that. And that's just exactly the opposite the way you did it. So one contrast the way you do this with these, quote unquote, hearing aid centers, and then this the sales business, which is what it seems to be more important. 00;19;44;16 - 00;19;44;25 Kristy Campion Right. 00;19;45;08 - 00;19;46;10 Cary Hall At least to them. Yeah. 00;19;46;10 - 00;20;46;02 Kristy Campion And in some aspects it is. And it's difficult to kind of always get away from that. But and the difference in those places and there and there's nothing that's necessarily wrong or bad. They are licensed hearing aid dispensers. They are trained in testing and they're trained to be able to fit a hearing aid. And sometimes the difference with a dispensing clinic versus an ear, nose and throat office or private audiology clinic is that you may get a little bit more comprehensive care because of the training that audiologist have versus a licensed dispenser. And so there's a lot of different ways to approach it and different places to go to get care. And I'd certainly suggest that you start somewhere and it makes a big difference in the extent of the loss that you have and how successful you're going to be with the fitting. So how comprehensive the testing is and how thorough the fitting is and how specific it is to your loss makes a huge difference. So over-the-counter hearing aids, which are something that we're just. 00;20;46;05 - 00;21;07;08 Cary Hall Just just approved it. And I really question if that's going supposedly the restate that was for people because it would make hearing aids cheaper for people to afford. But after all of what I went through with you to get this and how well it's working, I can't imagine walking into Costco and buying a damn hearing aid. It just doesn't make sense to me. 00;21;07;10 - 00;22;28;23 Kristy Campion Well, you're missing a few key steps, so you know, at first we all cringe when we hear a over the counter hearing aid because as an audiologist, you just know how much it is involved in fitting someone with a hearing aid properly. You have to do a proper hearing test because you're looking at the hearing loss with different frequencies. So if you don't know what you're hearing, losses, it's going to be very difficult to get a hearing aid that's going to work for you effectively. You also have to have an ear examination. So if you're getting something over the counter, you're missing those two steps. And I'm not sure exactly of the quality of the device, the technology of the device there. I guess they're coming out in October, but that is something that if you have a mild to moderate hearing loss, your ear is clear. You don't have any other major issues. Maybe it's going to be effective for you. Somebody with a more extensive severe loss is going to be needing to fit appropriately at the physical fit of the hearing. Aid makes an enormous difference in how that hearing aid is going to work. The technology level is going to make a big difference. You're saying that, you know, you're having options to choose from. And we do. There's there's several different types of technology. So one manufacturer, one brand is going to have several different devices. Some of them are going to fit different, whether it's over the ear, in the ear. 00;22;29;01 - 00;22;54;25 Kristy Campion And you're going to have a very basic hearing aid where there's noise reduction and there's going to be amplification at all of the different frequencies, then you're going to have a much higher level device. And those devices like what you have are Phonak actually. Yes, it's a Phonak. It's a very good device. It's good in terms of automatic adjustment. So when you walk into a room that's noisy, that hearing aid says, oh, that's noise, that speech in it tries to make it. 00;22;54;25 - 00;23;51;10 Cary Hall And that's funny because when you were doing all this to me and I was like, I don't think I'm going to want this mean I'm going to want to be able to set this up myself. And you're like, You, okay, we'll set up a couple of these for you, but you need to try this and see. I rarely change this now. I do change it sometimes regarding television for speech and noise to get better focus and then in restaurants I will change it. So I don't if if I don't sometimes it's like at Red Rock where it’s really noisy, I may change it myself. Okay. But typically, like I had a lunch meeting yesterday. J. Alexander’s it is pretty noisy, but I didn't touch it because it automatically adjusts itself. So I've gotten very comfortable with the automatic which the other hearing aids that I had didn't have anything like that. Yeah. And so this is a just an I don't know how long that hearing aids been out, but for me, this is like night and day compared to what I had before. And my use of it is dramatically different than what I was doing before. 00;23;51;10 - 00;24;24;14 Kristy Campion Yeah. You had mentioned that you weren't wearing your old hearing aids all the time, and that is something I always try to counsel my patients to do, is to wear them all day long, even if there's not anybody around that you're talking to. Because if you're sitting there doing the dishes, you are getting used to hearing the clinking of dishes. If you're getting you know, if you're just sitting there watching television, you're able to hear speech better. If you're rustling a newspaper, you're getting used to it. So then when you go out to a noisy place, your brain is used to hearing all these sounds and you can focus on speech better and your brain's going to start to ignore those other things. 00;24;24;22 - 00;24;53;27 Kristy Campion If you go all day, it is quiet, little house, you know, quiet world. And then you go to a really noisy social engagement restaurant you put it in, you're going to be overwhelmed by the noise. And there are some hearing aids that are going to do a much better job than others of filtering that out. So if you have a good hearing aid with a lot of noise reduction, if you have a lot of bands and channels in that hearing aid to adjust automatically and adjust appropriately for the noise that's in the room. In the speech that you're trying to hear, you can be very successful. 00;24;54;02 - 00;25;54;25 Cary Hall Yeah. And you went through this with me chapter and verse. I remember when I put it in, I put it in wrong. And you showed me how to put it in right, and I've got it on now. I've got it in just the other thing I thought was interesting and I told this to Lauren when I came home, I said, you know, I can always go back there and if I have a problem, they'll help me with it. They'll take care of it. She told me, Come back, whatever you need, yada, yada, yada. Well, that's important. It is. Okay. So to me, having that access to that care afterwards, if I had problems or wanted to do something else, I was able to do it. This is it. This. I saw this in the notes for the show. I thought it was interesting and that is the stigma of wearing a hearing aid and here again, I thought was somewhat humorous. I'm like, what stigma? And then I remembered I've got a friend whose wife is having hearing and she refuses to get a hearing aid because it doesn't look good. Well, first of all, you can't see this thing. No, it's got a little wire going into my ear that's translucent or whatever. It you can't see it. It sits behind my ear with my glasses. You can't even tell. I've got this thing on. 00;25;54;25 - 00;26;00;18 Kristy Campion You can't. In fact, I was looking at your ear closely when I saw you this morning because of like, does he have wearing? 00;26;00;23 - 00;26;01;02 Cary Hall No. 00;26;01;11 - 00;26;04;18 Kristy Campion Like, really? Yeah. No, it's there. Yeah, but I had to look for. 00;26;04;28 - 00;26;09;00 Cary Hall It so anymore. It's not like that big brown thing sticking out of your ear. 00;26;09;00 - 00;26;09;20 Kristy Campion That's what kind. 00;26;09;20 - 00;26;12;19 Cary Hall Of thinking about these things are. They're just. 00;26;12;23 - 00;26;13;14 Kristy Campion They're discreet. 00;26;13;15 - 00;26;14;08 Cary Hall They're amazing. 00;26;14;10 - 00;26;48;10 Kristy Campion They are. I mean, and there are so many patients that I test and I recommend a hearing and they're like, nope, not going to do it. It makes me look old. Serious. Yes. And I try to change their mind and sometimes I'm successful in that, but they think it makes them look old. But I think that if they are withdrawing from conversation and sitting in the corner of a room or answering a question inappropriately, I don't think that's the image they necessarily want to project either. And if the appearance of the hearing aid is their number one factor in concern, we can make that hearing aid. 00;26;48;15 - 00;26;51;14 Cary Hall You can't tell. I've got this. I didn't even know I had it on the day I had it. 00;26;51;22 - 00;26;53;08 Kristy Campion And I know what you're. 00;26;53;08 - 00;27;32;16 Cary Hall Yeah, and look, folks, you know, as you know, I was I was at a yoga Pilates class last week and I was having a rough time and and Dana, who's been on the show a number of times, said, well, Cary, you're not getting any younger. So that was this week's profound statement. Okay, you aren't getting any younger people. If you're aging you, it is what it is. Okay? Nobody's going to get out of here alive, as my wife says. And that's just the way it works. So if if you you think you've got an issue or you really need you really need to look into it and deal with that. And the other thing is you you gave me four different choices on hearing it. 00;27;32;16 - 00;28;11;02 Cary Hall Yes. Okay. And I picked this one because when you put them on me and I had a chance to listen, you did these different sounds that I was able to tell I was like, oh, wow, this thing is like, wow, this is this. This is really different. Yes. And then when I started wearing it, I was like, boy, there's a lot of stuff I haven't been hearing right. And I didn't and I don't have severe hearing loss. I had mild hearing loss when we did the tests. But nonetheless, you don't realize how much you're missing out. And and the other problem for me, the big problem for me, especially with television, if you're watching a live show, you could pretty much understand what you're saying. But if you're watching a series or a movie or something, sometimes it's very difficult to understand. 00;28;11;02 - 00;28;11;22 Kristy Campion It is. 00;28;11;22 - 00;28;23;16 Cary Hall Not with this if I go to that speech, noise, focus, it's like it picks it right up. Yeah. And I be able to hear and I don't need to watch close caption so I quit so I can watch the. 00;28;23;18 - 00;28;25;03 Kristy Campion Yeah I don't happy to hear that. 00;28;25;03 - 00;28;30;06 Cary Hall Yeah. Yeah. To me that, that, that, that improves quality of life and I thought that was important. So it is. 00;28;30;06 - 00;28;30;22 Kristy Campion It is very important. 00;28;30;22 - 00;28;43;00 Cary Hall When we come back from the break, we'll wrap it up. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network coast to coast across the USA. Stay right there. 00;28;43;00 - 00;29;40;12 Cary Hall ♪ Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate Show broadcasting coast to coast across the fruited plain here on the HIA Radio Network. You can find out more about us by going to our website HealthRadio.us. Pretty interesting show, right? Maybe it's your husband, the guy who keeps turning up the TV and you're going crazy. Okay. Or maybe it's your wife or, you know, whatever. Okay, go listen to the podcast. Go up on SoundCloud. TuneIn, iTunes, Audacy, Spreaker. We're on Apple Play. We're on all of them. Okay. Go up there and listen to the show. Have them listen to the show. Listen to Kristy explain why this is important. Listen to what she says about it. It ain't going to get better if you're not doing something about it, it's going to decline at a faster rate and become a bigger problem for you. As time goes on, we're going to talk about what happens to people when they let this go, how it affects them in this segment as well. 00;29;40;17 - 00;29;54;19 Cary Hall In studio with me, Kristy Campion. She is the doctor of audiology and Dr. Parker Thornton's office. Their website fptmd.com, fptmd.com, phone number 913-261-2223. 00;29;54;19 - 00;30;34;04 Cary Hall So I mentioned this friend of mine out in California who he's 86 years old now and he's completely withdrawn from his family and he refuses to do anything with the hearing issue. And if he'd done this years ago, he wouldn’t be in this situation now. And it's affected the whole family and everybody that, you know, this is a guy that used to take his kids out fishing and, you know, on the in the ocean. And they had big social gatherings and all. And that's all gone now is because of this, right? He's just completely withdrawn into himself. So talk about a little bit about that. And and and what happens? Why does that happen? And and does it get progressively worse? 00;30;34;05 - 00;31;38;25 Kristy Campion It does. And like I mentioned before, the anxiety issue, when somebody is misunderstanding something and they're afraid to answer incorrectly because they don't hear it, it is stressful and they no longer want to participate because there's a listening effort that takes energy. You are straining, you are struggling to hear and understand. Then you say the wrong thing, you answer incorrectly, and you know people are looking at you strangely, so you withdraw and that affects relationships. I see it all the time with patients that come in with their spouses and the spouse is aggravated because they don't think they're listening or they can't hear and they're not doing anything about it. And it affects their relationships. It could be because they don't want to go out to dinner anymore because, you know, the someone can't hear well, so they don't want to do it. That affects the social life. So it definitely can play a role on, you know, how social you are, how well you're communicating with your family. I have people that can't hear their grandkids that is a huge aha moment that brings them in is because their grandkids are talking to them. They don't understand. 00;31;38;25 - 00;31;51;08 Cary Hall I could never understand what my grandkids are saying anyway, at least at least not my four year old and my three year old grandchild. But by but so I get most of it. But I mean, they have they kind of have a mixed language. It's kind of. 00;31;51;08 - 00;32;04;13 Kristy Campion Yes, they do. And they might be walking away when they're talking to you. But I see that really affect people because they might stop talking to you. You know, they're like, well, you know, Grandpa's not going to hear me. So I'm going to, you know, I'm just not going to talk. 00;32;04;15 - 00;32;06;29 Cary Hall And they're pretty perceptive. They know you're not. Yeah. Yeah. 00;32;06;29 - 00;32;23;18 Kristy Campion So and if you and it isn't too late for your friend, you know, a hearing aid can still be very helpful. But again, the longer you wait, the more severe your hearing loss gets. It is more difficult to be successful with a hearing aid just because your brain has gone so long without that information. 00;32;23;26 - 00;33;03;06 Cary Hall Yeah, and we talked about this earlier, but I'm going to go back to it again. You know, this they've tied this out to dementia. Yes. They've tried this. You know, you have cognitive issues, dexterity issues. You know, there's a whole series of things that happens is you don't really realize how important this is until you start paying attention to some of that stuff and the potential for bigger problems. Because you didn't take care of it initially. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So here's the other thing that I can't afford a hearing aid, right? Like, I can't. It's going to cost way too much money. Address that issue. You showed me four different hearing aids, vastly different in price. Yes. Okay. But to talk a little bit about that. 00;33;03;12 - 00;33;33;17 Kristy Campion Typically, I mean, everybody kind of has that initial thought in their head is like I go to the doctor's office that hearing aid is going to be way too expensive and they can be. But there's also a lot of insurance coverage and there's a wide range of devices that have a wide range of cost. So don't automatically think you can't afford it. We will look into your insurance coverage. And if there's not an allowance for a hearing aid, almost all of the insurance companies work with some sort of discount program, discount group where we can get a better price for you and for me. 00;33;33;28 - 00;33;36;00 Cary Hall You did it for me. Did that for Lauren both, right? 00;33;36;03 - 00;34;05;12 Kristy Campion Yeah. And if, you know, we look at your hearing loss, we look at what you need and what kind of device is going to help you. And we are going to, of course, look at your budget. So we try to put all those things together and get you the best advice that we can for what you can afford. And we'll find any way that we can help with that. And that's where, you know, the over-the-counter hearing aids come in is because it's an affordable option. And if that is something that can help you, you know, it is something if you have a more extensive hearing loss than just mild, you're probably going to need to be fit professionally. 00;34;05;22 - 00;34;14;05 Kristy Campion But again, there's a wide variety of hearing aids. They are more basic to some that are a lot more expensive, more, you know, and are going to help you more, especially if you're in crowds. 00;34;14;10 - 00;35;14;21 Cary Hall So there are 36 million of you out there that have Medicare Advantage plans right now. And Every Medicare Advantage plan has a a piece in it that that functions as helping you pay for a hearing aid. So there's actual money there to help you buy a hearing aid. Some of the plans, like Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City has thing called blue bucks. Blue bonus bucks. Okay. And it could be up to $1,000. That's that's money on a credit card that you can go it or a gift card, however they do it, that you can go in and use to buy a hearing aid. So back to that cost issue. If you are on Medicare and you've got a medicare Advantage plan, then there's a benefit in there that helps offset the costs. You couple that with the discount, maybe you've got it. Maybe again, you know, if you've got the the Blue Cross bonus bucks thing, you've got a discount. You've got $1,000 up to it depending on the policy. Well that offset that that that could pay for more than half or all the hearing aid depending on what you get sometimes. Yeah. So the point is you'll show them a way to make it work for them. 00;35;14;21 - 00;35;39;04 Kristy Campion Yes. Don't automatically assume you can't afford it. Yes. Hearing aids can be very expensive, but there are ways I would come in. Let us look at your insurance. Let us figure out if we can find a device for you that will work for the hearing loss that you have. And sometimes we might have to compromise on some features, you know, but if you're not in loud, noisy places all the time that your lifestyle is quiet, we can find a hearing aid that's going to work for you for your loss, for your budget. 00;35;39;06 - 00;35;56;24 Cary Hall And, you know, we're wrapping it up here for we're wrapping up for the day on the show. But I just again, the whole purpose of hearing your show today was because I deal with this issue my wife deals with this issue is to is to get people to understand that you really need to pay attention to this. This isn't something just blow off right. Okay. 00;35;56;27 - 00;36;01;00 Kristy Campion And it can change your life. I have seen people light up when I turn a hearing aid off. 00;36;01;00 - 00;36;01;05 Cary Hall Yeah. 00;36;01;21 - 00;36;03;13 Kristy Campion They've come back to life for. 00;36;03;17 - 00;36;17;06 Cary Hall Well, it certainly helped me, I'll tell you that, because I don't you know, the closed caption thing on I don't struggle in restaurants anymore. It's just made a big difference to me and I really thank you for it. You've got a busy schedule and I appreciate your taking the time to come here. 00;36;17;06 - 00;36;18;17 Kristy Campion Absolutely. Thanks for having me. 00;36;19;03 - 00;36;36;10 Cary Hall Thank you. And thank you for listening, folks. And I'll leave you with this thought from Dr. Albert Einstein, the one who follows the crowd, they usually get no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. Remember, friends. It's a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the very best you most often get it. 00;36;36;18 - 00;36;57;13 Cary Hall Thank you for listening to America's health care advocate broadcasting on the HIA Radio Network coast to coast across the USA. Goodbye, America. ♪♪♪