I wonder if anyone has experience of employees who work in a noisy environment (factory floor) and who need to wear hearing protection to protect against noise - 70decibels to 90decibels and who have been told that due to genetic (not noise induced) hearing loss that they need to wear large, behind the ear type hearing aids.  This will increase the level of noise entering their ear by as much as +20decibels.

Attenuated hearing protection to the higher level is not so much of a problem but . . where do you find hearing protection that can be worn with large hearing aids? Ear muffs are not ideal and apparently can cause feed back through the hearing aids.  "In the ear" plugs may cause a problem with the "in the ear"  mechanism of the hearing aid.

If anyone has experience of this problem (or any ideas) and how it was sorted I'd be interested to hear about it.

Thank you Joanna

Hi Joanna

As luck has it I wear two of the in-ear aids with the over-ear amps.

As you can imaging an in-ear defender would be pointless if the person needs to hear as removal of the 'aid' is needed.  The standared defenders do cause feed-back and again pointless.

For us poor souls how have inpaired hearing the only real solution is to simply remove the 'aid' and wear what ever defender works best for the individual to prevent further damage. 

For myself, I have muddy hearing and a loss of the high frequency end of things. If totaly deaf then again any one that does the job :-) but then again, a bit late.

Many thanks to everyone who has responded.  Your responses are very helpful and gives us lots to think about.

Thanks Joanna