Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
Question: My audiologist did not adequately prepare me for the challenges I would face in adjusting to wearing my new hearing aids. What is the best way to adapt to wearing hearing aids?—V. O.
Answer: Good question. Let’s go right back to the beginning. Far too often, people have unrealistic expectations as they anticipate hearing again with their new hearing aids. For many people, the scenario goes something like this.
The big day arrives. You are excited. You should be. Today you are going to hear again! Today you will receive brand new hearing aids.
Your audiologist carefully fits and adjusts them to meet your special hearing needs. She tests you with them to be sure you hear as well as possible. You are thrilled to hear her voice so clearly with your new aids.
You proudly walk out of her office. You are now on your own with your new “ears.” You look forward to a hearing adventure.
You leave the building and step out into the street. Suddenly a horrible cacophony of sounds assaults your ears. You are shocked right out of your socks! You don’t ever remember traffic being this noisy. You can’t stand the awful racket. Quickly you reach up and yank your hearing aids out of your ears and stuff them into your pocket—and your dream of hearing again is shattered.
Please Don’t Dump Me in Your Drawer
If this has been your experience, you are certainly not alone. Close to 1,000,000 hard of hearing people in the USA have done the same. In fact, one in every six to eight hearing aids sold today soon lie neglected and forgotten in dresser drawers.
To the above, add the enormous numbers of hard of hearing people who only drag their hearing aids out for certain special occasions. The rest of the time their hearing aids also languish in pockets and purses or get dumped back into dresser drawers.
This is a tragedy. Hearing aids designed to live in people’s ears too often are denied the opportunity to help their owners hear better. Why do people pay good money—up to $3,000.00 for each hearing aid—and then not wear them? Even more to the point, what should people be doing so that they will become successful users of hearing aids? Here are some answers.
Have Realistic Expectations of What Your Hearing Aids Will Do for You
Before you are even fitted for new hearing aids, you need to have realistic expectations of what hearing aids will and will not do for you.
1. Hearing Aids Will Not Give You Normal Hearing
Hearing aids are aids to better hearing. They are not cures for hearing loss. Hearing aids will typically reduce your hearing loss to about half of what it was before. This means that for those of us with significant hearing losses, at best, we will still have mild to moderate hearing losses. Thus, if you expect normal hearing, you will be sadly disappointed. However, if you expect to hear better, you will be pleased with your new hearing aids—particularly in quiet situations.
If you set your expectations too high, you may be so disillusioned that you may toss your hearing aids in some dresser drawer and forget about them.
For example, one elderly lady was fitted with hearing aids that allowed her to hear and understand about 95% of what people were saying. After 4 weeks, she returned the hearing aids to her audiologist and asked for a refund. Why? Because she was upset that she was still missing 5%!
She consigned herself to a life of frustration and silence, because she focused on the 5% she missed rather than on the whopping 95% she now could hear.
2. It Takes Time to Adjust to Wearing Hearing Aids
It comes as a shock to many people that they need time to adjust to wearing hearing aids. They think that adjusting to wearing new hearing aids should be like putting on new glasses—instant clear sight.
The truth is, you need to give your brain time to relearn how to hear and process all the new sounds it is now hearing—especially if your hearing loss was gradual. You gradually lost certain sounds. Now, when you put on hearing aids, all of a sudden these sounds blast your ears and you are overwhelmed.
It takes time for you to get reacquainted with the sounds you haven’t heard well for decades. This does not happen in a day or even a week. Your brain needs from 30 to 90 days or even longer to complete this process—so if you give up before this time, you will think hearing aids don’t work for you and you could be very wrong.
3. Everything Is Too Loud Now
One of the biggest shocks people experience when wearing new hearing aids is how loud everyday sounds now seem. The toilet flushing thunders like Niagara Falls! Clinking cutlery sounds like jackhammers. Initially, you may find you cannot stand rustling papers, running water and other everyday sounds.
However, with time, your brain will learn to turn down its internal volume control so these sounds become bearable. This is another reason you need to persevere during those first 90 days. Unfortunately, many people give up before this happens. If they had kept using their hearing aids a little longer, they would have succeeded.
People with sensorineural hearing losses also often suffer from recruitment. Recruitment is the perception that sounds increase in volume faster than they really do. Thus, if you ask a person to speak up and they raise their voice, it may seem like they are now shouting at you.
Recruitment is the result of a reduced dynamic range—that area between the softest sound you can hear and the loudest sound you can stand. Hearing aids need to amplify all sounds so that you can hear them, yet must not amplify them so much that you perceive the louder sounds as painful.
Typically, the greater your hearing loss, the worse your recruitment. Thus, you need to get hearing aids that have good wide dynamic range compression circuitry built in. This compression needs to be set properly for your hearing loss, or loud sounds will “blow the top of your head off.” At least that is the way it feels.
Sounds that recruit may seem far too loud, but in reality, this is only your perception of them. In truth, they are not so loud that they are damaging your ears.
4. Hearing Aids Cannot Fix Fuzzy or Distorted Hearing
When you lose your hearing, you not only hear sounds softer, but also speech now sounds fuzzy or distorted. This is because typically you lose most of your hearing in the high frequencies. It is these higher frequencies that give speech much of its intelligence. If your ears can no longer hear these frequencies no matter how much these sounds are amplified, hearing aids will not bring clarity to your fuzzy hearing world.
However, if you still have some high frequency hearing, digital aids can be adjusted to specifically amplify these higher frequencies much more than the lower frequencies you typically hear reasonably well. This will help you hear clearer speech once again. It will not be perfect—so don’t expect that—but it will be better.
5. Hearing Aids Do Not Let You Hear Well in Noise
Hearing aids work best in quiet situations when you are only 3 to 8 feet from the speaker. In noise, or at greater distances, hearing aids alone typically do not work well. In fact, not being able to hear in noise is one of the most common complaints of hearing aid users. The truth is, you may hear worse in noise than you do without wearing your hearing aids. For this you just spent $4,000.00?
If you live or work in noisy environments, make sure your hearing aids have good noise suppression circuitry. You will also find that to hear effectively in noise, you will likely need to couple your hearing aids with various assistive listening devices.
Unfortunately, few people even know that assistive technology exists, so they don’t insist on having the specific features they need built into their hearing aids in order to couple to this technology.
6. You May Not be Ready Psychologically
Wearing hearing aids before you are ready psychologically is a sure way to fail. You first have to grieve for your hearing loss (i.e. work through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression before reaching the acceptance stage). It is only when you reach the acceptance stage that you are finally ready to do all you can to help yourself hear better—which includes wearing hearing aids. If you are still in the denial or depression stages, you will not give hearing aids a fair trial before relegating them to the dresser drawer. (See the article “Grieving for Your Hearing Loss“.)
Get the Right Hearing Aids and Features
In order to become friends with your new hearing aids, you need hearing aids that are friendly to you and your lifestyle in the first place. “Friendly” hearing aids have the features you need to hear the best you can with your particular hearing loss.
I recommend getting behind the ear (BTE) hearing aids because they are big enough to contain all the “goodies” you need, have the power you may need, last longer, need fewer repairs and are cheaper. In addition, they are easier to put on, easier to manipulate the controls and easier to find when you put them down.
What “goodies” do you need in your hearing aids? In my opinion, you should never buy a hearing aid that does not have a built-in telecoil (sometimes called a T-switch, t-coil or audiocoil). With a telecoil, you can couple effectively to personal amplifiers, FM systems or infrared system via neckloops or silhouettes and to telephones and room loops just via the telecoil. If you have a severe or profound hearing loss, you may also want direct audio input (DAI) capability and/or built-in FM receivers.
If you have to listen to people from a distance or listen when several others are talking, directional microphones can make a big difference. Better yet, get noise-canceling capability combined with directional microphones.
Use Assistive Technology with Your Hearing Aids
Noise and distance are two enemies of hearing aid users. Under these conditions, you need to combine your hearing aids with assistive listening devices such as personal amplifiers, room loops, FM systems and infrared systems. Used together, these devices can turn your hearing aids into super aids.
This is because with these devices, you are effectively moving the microphone from your ears up to the speaker. As a result, you will hear beautiful clear sound in both ears at the same time straight from the speaker’s mouth. At the same time, most of the room noise is blocked out—a definite win-win situation.
Good-bye World of Silence! Successfully Adapting to Wearing Hearing Aids
If you have followed the suggestions outlined above, you now have hearing aids that will best fit your needs. You realize that hearing with them won’t be perfect, but you’ll hear much better than you do now. What you need to do now is learn how to effectively adjust to wearing your new hearing aids so you won’t rip them out of your ears in disgust and throw them in a drawer.
In contrast to the opening scenario where the person attempted to wear his hearing aids home from the Audiologists’ office, here is a better way to adjust to wearing them.
Sit down and relax in a quiet place in your home. Put your hearing aids in your ears and turn them on. Talk to yourself while you adjust the volume to a comfortable level.
Listen to the sounds around you. Do you hear the hum of the refrigerator? the creaking of your house? the sounds of a car driving by outside? the rustle of your clothes? Get used to them for they will again be a part of your life.
Learn to feel comfortable with your hearing aids. It’s normal that your ears will feel full, (and probably hot and sweaty too) like you have something stuffed in them—because you do. If your ear molds hurt, go back to your audiologist to have them ground down a bit. Wearing hearing aids may feel uncomfortable to some degree, but they should never hurt.
On the first day, wear your hearing aids for only one hour. The second day: two hours, the third day: three hours. After that, add another hour a day until you are comfortable wearing them all the time. If this is too fast for you, just increase the time by a smaller amount, say 30 minutes a day.
To begin with, do not wear your hearing aids in noisy places. You need to be comfortable in quiet places first. Treat yourself to easy listening situations during your first few weeks of adjusting to wearing your hearing aids. Try not to listen to too much too soon. If sounds are too loud, turn your hearing aids down slightly. If your hearing aids begin to bother you, take them off and give yourself a rest. Put them on again later. You need time to get used to wearing them and to hearing sounds again. The key to success is to make haste slowly.
Read aloud to yourself. You may be horrified how loud or different your voice sounds. This is normal. Get used to it. This is how you really sound. Slowly you will come to like your “new” voice.
The sound of your phone ringing or the sudden ding-dong of your door bell may startle you. You may jump when doors slam, dogs bark or people cough. This too, is normal.
When you are comfortable hearing your own voice, talk to one other person in a quiet place. Have them sit between 3 and 6 feet from you.
When you are ready, wear your hearing aids outside and listen to the sounds around you. Try to identify birds singing, traffic sounds, rustling leaves, the sounds of your shoes scrunching on the sidewalk. Begin on relatively quiet streets and slowly build up to busy downtown streets.
Finally, but only after you are comfortable wearing your hearing aids in all other situations, are you ready to tackle difficult and noisy listening situations. In crowds and at parties, talk to one person at a time. Don’t try to follow everyone at once. If the noise gets to you after a while, seek a quiet place. In restaurants, start with quiet, well-lighted ones. Gradually work up to noisier restaurants as you feel comfortable.
Adjust slowly and consistently to wearing your new hearing aids. You must be patient for it will take time. Remember, it takes from 30 to 90 days for your brain to adjust to the new sounds it is now hearing.
How well and how fast you adapt to your new electronic ears depends on several factors. These include: how bad your hearing loss is, the type of loss you have, how long you have had the loss, whether it happened gradually over many years or whether it was sudden, and how well your ears can discriminate different sounds.
Adapting to your new hearing aids may take a week or a month or a year—everyone is different. The important thing is to keep at it. Don’t compare your progress with others.
If you only have a mild loss, you may adapt to your new aids the first day—it may be love at first sound. If your hearing loss is severe you likely will take much longer to adapt. The same is true if you have had a hearing loss for many years before doing anything about it.
However, when you finally adapt to wearing your hearing aids, something surprising happens. The day will come when you will actually feel undressed unless you are wearing your hearing aids. You realize just how much your hearing aids help you successfully cope in the hearing world. Without realizing it, you and your hearing aids have become close friends indeed!
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This basic article, in slightly different format, and titled Becoming Friends With Your New Hearing Aids was published in the May/June 2005 edition of Hearing Loss magazine, pp 21-25.
Thanks for the advice on adjusting to using hearing aids! My dad just got hearing aids and I want to help him through the transition. He’s noticing that things are too loud for him but I assume that he will adjust to this. Would you suggest that he wears them all the time so that he can adjust, or should he give himself a break and take them off once in a while?
Hi Eliza:
If his hearing aids are too loud, he should go back and get them set a bit softer (or he can always turn the volume down if he has volume controls). Then, after a week or two when that feels more comfortable, he can go back and have the volume raised some more. Keep doing this until the volume is at the prescribed level. That’s one good way.
Apart from that, he needs to take them off when the noise gets to him. Better off to start wearing them in quieter situations to begin with and work up to noisier situations.
Cordially,
Neil
Meniere’s disease runs in my family. It is likely that I will need to get hearing aids in the future. That’s interesting that people might need to adjust to the fact that they receive constant auditory stimulation with the use of hearing aids. Being able to hear the hum of your refrigerator or the coughing people around you might be annoying at first. I’ll have to remember that for the future.
My father just recently purchased hearing aids, and he is having troubles liking them. I didn’t know that combining personal amplifiers with your hearing aid helped you with distance. I always assumed that hearing aids helped you to hear distance. Thanks for the information.
Why do my ears itch while using my OTE aids
Hi Chris:
It could be that the earmolds are irritating the lining of your ear canal. For some people changing the molds to an hypoallergenic material is the answer.
It could also be that you have an infection in your ear canal and the ear mold makes it worse, resulting in the itching.
Cordially,
Neil
I have congenital hearing loss, but did not begin to use hearing aids until I was in college. Each time I’ve gotten new hearing aids, I’ve felt like they were super for about a month or two, and then I would go back to having trouble understanding speech. I recently got bte models, and I’m struggling again. I always thought it was just me but now I’m watching my dad go through the same thing. Is this normal? should we have our audiologist readjust the devices?
Hi Marcy:
Whenever your hearing aids seem to change in helping you hear better, you should go back to your audiologist to have them adjusted to your current situation.
There are two reasons this can happen. First, the initial adjustment may sound good, but then your brain gets used to hearing again and your aids need to be tweaked a bit to give you optimal hearing. And then your brain changes some more (your brain is “plastic” and rewires itself to better process the new sounds you are now hearing with you new aids) and so you need to go for another tweak. Don’t be surprised if this happens several times until your brain is completely used to your new aids. Some people have to go back 6 or 7 times before they are really happy with their new aids.
The other prime reason your new adis sound great for a month or more and then “go bad” is that you have a progressive hearing loss (especially in the higher frequencies). When you can’t hear these high frequencies clearly, speech soon sounds muddy, vague and hard to understand. Your audiologist then needs to boost the gain in the higher frequencies to bring them back to the proper volume–and you hear better again. This has to be done each time your hearing drops. If you have a progressive hearing loss, then you will be doing this every month or few months.
Cordially,
Neil
Very well written and very helpful, I only got my new hearing aids about twelve hours ago, the audiologist was very good at giving me advice, she kept repeating it takes time persevere, one thing happened on the way home that was very interesting, I went to buy a sandwich in a shop, the big fridge was much louder than usual, I mentioned it to the young woman saying I had new hearing aids, her reply was very much related, she said yes it is loud but eventually your brain blocks it out.
I have profound hearing loss in both ears and currently wear Oticon Chili SP7. It appears these aids focus on speech, which is good, but I cannot hear music anymore. My audiologist has tried numerous times, unsuccessfully to incorporate a music program. It’s hard for e to comprehend I can no longer listen to the radio, go to a musical venue or watch a musical on television.
My audiogram:
HZ…250…500…1000…2000…3000…4000
RT…60…..75……110…..110
LT…75…..85……..85……120…..120…..120
Hi Laura:
You certainly can’t hear the higher frequency musical notes anymore. However, you should still be able to enjoy music that is pitched very low. For example, instead of hearing violins, you should hear the double bass, and instead of flutes you should hear tubas and other low frequency instruments.
For sure, it won’t sound normal, but you should be able to enjoy some pieces.
Cordially,
Neil
This article is spot on when it comes to having hearing aides. My sister has hearing loss and she was expecting hearing aids to fix the hearing problem completely but it didn’t. In this article it talks a little bit about this and I really appreciate it.
Thank you for your email it answered ALL my questions, I only just recently got my hearing aids a few weeks ago and my next follow up is april 8, my Audiologist said that we will be having a different conversation one month from now. My concerns are exactly what you stated, back ground noise, but that too is getting better, i hardly heard the papers rustling when in the doctor’s office it felt as though bombs were being set off.
i have very little patience and I too expected that one I got them in it would answer all my hearing problems.
I am so glad that I read your article it is very informative and I have peace of mind that if i keep wearing them that I should adjust comfortably. I am rather upset too that it actually does not restore the hearing, but at least i can now hear conversation around me.
thanks for your article.
My dad just got his hearing aids and I want to do a little research on how they work. Thank you so much for talking about how is you experience problems with your hearing aids it is important to get them repaired as soon as possible. DO you know how often you need to get them serviced? I want to make sure my dad’s units stay working properly for a long time.
Hi John:
Hearing aids don’t need a lot of “service” from a hearing aid dispenser. I almost never have any done to mine. But they do need regular service to keep wax from building up and blocking the “sound hole”. You can check this every few days and if there is any wax remove it with a wax tool or suction bulb.
Another thing is to make sure your dad’s ear canals don’t fill up with wax. This can be a problem as the ear mold prevents normal wax from working its way out. Some people need their wax removed every month or two and others go for years without any problems. So it is a highly individual thing. His hearing aid dispenser can tell him whether wax is building up or not. In time, you’ll learn a good interval to have his ear canals checked for wax build-up and have any removed.
Cordially,
Neil
My audiologist told me to wear my hearing aids 10-12 hours a day from day one. This seems at odds from all other comments I’ve read.
Hi Stephanie:
Unless you have a recent mild hearing loss and thus your brain is able to handle all the new sounds, wearing a hearing aid all day from day one is not a wise thing to do.
Think of preparing for running a marathon. Do you start out by running the whole 25 miles from day 1? Of course not! You slowly build up to it. That is how you should do it with hearing aids also.
When you audiologist tells you to wear your hearing aids 10 to 12 hours a day–that is theoretically correct–but you have to build up to that over a matter of weeks as your ears/brain can handle it.
Cordially,
Neil
I recently got hearing aids. My problem now is that even when I take them off, I feel like I am talking into a barrel. Is this common? I hate it.
Hi Libby:
If you feel like you are talking into a barrel with your hearing aids on, then, if possible, you need vents in your earmolds to get rid of this occlusion effect. Let the person who fitted you with hearing aids know this so they can fix it.
It could also be because they are giving you too much bass (low frequency emphasis). If this is the case, they can cut back on the low frequency amplification until it goes away. You need to speak up and tell them how things sound so they can tweak your aids.
When you take your hearing aids off, things can sound weird for a while because of the contrast between hearing and not hearing. This should go away in 15 minutes or longer. But you should not hear this way all the time.
Cordially,
Neil
Hi
I picked up my 2 hearing aids 2 days ago. I’ve been told to wear them for up to 3hrs a day the first week and then increase by an hour each week. This seems to be going well but it seems so weird hearing noises I’ve not really heard before. Hubby thinks its really funny when I say what’s that?
I have just one question, I think I’m talking normally but I’m told when I’m wearing them I talk a lot quieter than normal. My daughter said to me to shout but it seems like I’m talking really really loud but she says that its a normal volume. Is this normal or do I need to get the hearing aids adjusted. I have a follow up appointment in 3wks.
I look forward to any advise you might be able to give me.
Thanks
Hi Sue:
Some people are like you and hear their own voice so loud that they think they are shouting so they talk almost in a whisper. You need to get used to the sound of your own voice so you talk at the right level.
One way to do this is to notice how much effort/force you make in speaking without your aids on. Then, put them on and use the same amount of effort/force. That is the right volume.
It could be that your audiologist set your hearing aids to their correct (ultimate) volume. It may be too much for you to start with. You could go back NOW, don’t wait three weeks, and have her turn them down to less than the ideal level so you can get used to your louder voice. Then once you are used to it, turn them up some more and finally to the proper volume. It takes time for your brain to adjust–about 90 days.
If you have a volume control, you can turn them down yourself while you get used to your voice.
That’s one reason to only wear your hearing aids for a short time to start with and then slowly increase the time–gives your brain time to get used to the new sound levels.
Cordially,
Neil
This was an excellent article and I learned a lot about gradually increasing the hours of the day that you wear the hearing aids. The questions by hearing aid users were very helpful.
I have 2 issues.
1. I have more loss in lower frequencies. With or without the hearng aids, music in the lower notes sounds out of tune. I also sing out of tune lower down. My audiologist says nothing can be done about this. ..
2. Crackling of cellophane and plastic is not just loud (that is ok) but almost painful, it is hard to describe, but like a whooshing/change of air pressure. Audiologist has tried to adjust this but I don’t think he understands the precise problem.
If I can add to that, onion skins have the same “pressure change” effect.
I wonder if you can help.
Hi Penny:
When you hear in the wrong key, there is not much that can be done about it as your audiologist said, but with this one caveat. If you are taking certain drugs, they can cause you to hear music at the wrong pitch. The solution is simple–quit taking that drug and your ears will return to hearing in the right key.
If certain sounds such as the crackling of cellophane becomes much to loud (I certainly can relate to this) and you have a sensorineural hearing loss, you have recruitment. The solution is that your audiologist needs to test you for your uncomfortable level (UCL) for EACH audiometric test frequency. Then she needs to set the compression BY FREQUENCY so that you never quite reach the level where sounds recruit.
Theoretically, if this is done correctly, no sounds will recruit and you won’t be bothered by such sounds when wearing your hearing aids. In real life it is hard to do this because of limitations in hearing aids, and because audiologists don’t want to turn down the volume for some frequencies as it will give you worse hearing. That is a trade off.
I sort of tread a fine line between both–accepting some recruitment for better hearing, but then if the recruitment gets to be too much, I take my hearing aids off (and get much worse hearing). Thus is it better to accept the hit to hearing in exchange for being able to tolerate all sounds without pain. Good luck in finding an audiologist that thinks the same way. They mostly say you have to get used to it–and this is almost impossible–at least in my experience.
Cordially,
Neil
Thanks very much indeed, Neil.
Misophonia is getting a lot of attention these days – certain sounds are particularly aggravating to hear (chewing, slurping, eating popcorn, crunching-shaking ice, etc.). For those with this condition, hearing aids can amplify these sounds to an bad level. I am thinking about having the tech person turn down the volume on my hearing aids for this reason. Wonder how common this might be – only saw one or two references to it.
Hi Bob:
If you have misophonia (now also being called “annoyance hyperacusis”), wearing hearing aids will just make things so much worse and that is not the way to deal with this condition.
If it makes things worse, you have some choices. One is to leave the area so those sounds don’t continue to annoy you. Two is to take your hearing aids off, if that helps. Three is to have a quieter setting on your aids if you have multiple memories and switch to that in such situations. And four is to have your hearing aids turned down. I wouldn’t do the latter if you only have one memory because then in every situation you wouldn’t hear as well. It would be great if you have multiple memories though. (One reason I don’t like only having one memory in hearing aids–you lose this flexibility and you need it if you have misophonia.
Cordially,
Neil
I bought two hearing aids about a year and half ago, and abandoned them after a couple of months. Since then, I have been diagnosed with vestibular migraines and Meniere’s…it was suggested I try the hearing aids again, but now they make me incredibly dizzy, and within an hour or so, my migraines kick in. Is there any hope at all, as I’m feeling these just make my life worse.
Hi Scott:
Don’t wear them if they make your life worse. Instead, get to the root of your problem. If you really do have Meniere’s disease (and doctors often misdiagnose it), then the solution is getting your C1 and C2 vertebrae properly aligned. This could also be the cause of your vestibular problems and migraines. Medical doctors don’t know this so don’t tell you this.
I suggest you read my comprehensive article on Meniere’s disease and how to cure it at https://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/atlas-adjustments-alleviate-menieres-disease/ then follow through.
Once everything is properly aligned, then see whether you have any ear, vestibular or migraine problems remaining. At that point, you could try your hearing aids again. Hopefully, you won’t have any more problems with them.
Let me know how it goes.
Cordially,
Neil
So thankful that you mentioned chiropractic treatment! People suffer for years and it never occurs to them to try chiropractic, or their MD refuses to “allow” it. Been seeing chiropractors for 50 years, and that’s how my hearing loss was found.
Having tried several brands, I now have an Oticon BiCros, which gives me the best speech recognition possible. I am dismayed that I have no option for memory programs, but at least I have a music program. I’m a musician, so accurately hearing myself play and sing is important. My audiologist wears hearing aids too (how lucky can you get!) so she understands. Here’s my question: from day one I wore my hearing aids all day, every day. I was never told not to. Over 3 weeks we’ve gradually increased the sound to 100% of my prescription, at my request, because I needed more sound to understand speech. I just can’t get used to environmental noise – paper crackling, hearing my own foot steps, etc. My audiologist keeps adjusting things, and I keep trying, but it’s very disconcerting. I have no intention of throwing these in a drawer, so do you have any suggestions?
Hi Marie:
What you are suffering from is what I call amplification hyperacusis. It is the result of your hearing aids not being properly set for your particular hearing loss and how your brain interprets sound. Typically, this occurs mostly in the higher-frequency sounds.
You need a couple of different programs–one for relatively quiet places where you don’t hear such sounds–and thus can have the 100% of your prescription. You need another program that is set such that these sounds do NOT go through the top of your dynamic range and make sounds much too loud and hurt.
I’ve never been able to get my hearing aids adjusted for my ears so that this works properly. I think it is beyond the capability of my hearing aids to do this to fit my hearing. So you may have to compromise–in the higher frequencies, do not meet your target–stay a bit below it. It may cost you some hearing–but at least your won’t blow the top of your head off so much.
Cordially,
Neil
Thank you Neil. We are trying this now. It’s hard to get used to less hearing, but much better than having my head explode!
Since I can’t have different programs on this hearing aid, I turn down both the volume and the transmitter when in quiet spaces and then turn it up in public spaces. Hard to really see if that will work at the moment when we are all quarantined, but it does seem better.
Hi Dr. Bauman,
I have tinnitus and hyperacusis. I have got som BTE hearing aids with white noise in them to reduce the tinnitus symptoms. I use the with a closed sleeve dome.
While at work today I ate a quick sandwich. I also wore ear muffs because of working in a noisy enviroment. While eating I hit a hard grain or a peice of bone or something of the sort with my molars on the side og my worst ear. Because of the HA’s and the muffs, I suppose it was some occlusion effect aswell. It was what sounded like an extremly loud bang when it broke and my teeth clacked. Actually so loud I am worried that it might have reached a dangerous level (130+ dB).
I know the occlusion effect can increase the sound level by quite a lot. Am I just overthinking this, or can it reach levels that can damage the ears?
Hi Gard:
When you wear hearing aids and chew on something hard and it cracks/breaks, that sound can seem awfully loud and make your ears ring momentarily and make your hearing seem muffled for a few seconds. However, it should not damage your ears. Your hearing aids are set so that they do not pass on truly loud (and damaging) sounds.
Part of what you are hearing is via bone conduction so the sound bypasses your hearing aids.
I’ve never found such episodes to cause any permanent damage.
Cordially,
Neil
Thank you.
That is what is worrying me, the bone conduction. And the amplification caused by the occlusion effect. I read that the occusion can amplify sound up to 30 db.
Hi Gard:
If your ears are not still ringing and sounds are not still muffled because of this episode, then you have nothing to worry about.
Cordially,
Neil