So you don’t wear your hearing aids regularly? Most of the time you leave them in the drawer unless you are, for instance, going to the theater or to a party. Is it really necessary to wear them more often than that?
The issue is that when you don’t use your hearing aids on a regular basis, you’re developing some troubling disadvantages for yourself over the long term. You could permanently damage your hearing. You could have problems with mental decline or social isolation. You may compromise your overall health. This content will help you understand why you should be wearing your hearing aids.
Why Aren’t Your Hearing Aids in Your Ears?
If your hearing aids are sitting unused in a nightstand drawer somewhere, you likely have an excuse. Sure, perhaps you haven’t exactly been honest about what those reasons might be. Perhaps you evade the questions from your family when they ask why you don’t wear them.
Stilted dialogue to the side, we know that’s not the full story, right? Normally, there’s a specific reason why you’re not using your hearing aids. Specific issues are good because they create the possibility to find an equally specific solution.
What follows are some of the most common issues;
“My Hearing Aids Don’t Feel That Comfortable”
One of the most regularly cited reasons that individuals stop using their hearing aids frequently is discomfort. Perhaps the hearing aid won’t stop falling out of your ear. Or perhaps your over-the-ear model irritates just the wrong spot, causing pain and tenderness.
Hearing aids aren’t intended to be uncomfortable, so something is certainly wrong if they’re creating any kind of discomfort. And it’s logical that you wouldn’t want to wear a piece of technology that creates pain, frustration or soreness.
Possible solution: If your hearing aids are not comfortable, a follow-up fitting appointment is something you should think about. It’s altogether feasible that the way your hearing aid fits just requires a couple of quick adjustments. Some designs can even be completely customized to the size and shape of your ears. The more comfortable your hearing aid fits, the more likely you are to keep it in place for long periods of time.
My Hearing Aid Has Poor Sound Quality
Maybe you experience the sound of your hearing aid to be too tinny or fuzzy so you don’t use them that often. It’s not surprising that you’ve decided to put away your hearing aids for a special occasion, if that’s the situation.”
Hearing aids are executing complicated auditory functions all the time as they increase some sounds while filtering out others and that can cause a tinny or fuzzy sound. So the sound quality might seem hard to rely on if your settings aren’t correctly tweaked.
Solution: This problem has two potential answer: calibration and upkeep. Your hearing aids could be broken in some form or another and need to be
repaired. But it might be possible that they just need a simple calibration (normally this is something your hearing specialist can take care of for you).
Voices Seem Muffled When I Use my Hearing Aids
When you listen to people talk, you want to be capable of hearing them with clarity. That’s the whole reason why you got hearing aids to begin with! You didn’t want to miss one word. So if all the voices you hear are hard to understand and sound muffled it could be a little bit frustrating.
Because your ears and brain aren’t communicating very well anymore, this problem usually occurs when you first purchase your hearing aids.
Solution: Practice. Your brain will have to become accustomed to hearing language again, so putting yourself in a position to hear people talking regularly will be helpful. Try reading along to an audiobook or reading along with the closed captioning while you watch tv. Merely having more conversations with the people around you is a great way to get some practice, as well.
Finding Solutions
You can discover an answer no matter what the reason you’re not using your hearing aid. And it is imperative, both for your hearing health and for your cognitive well-being, that you use your hearing aids routinely.
So if your hearing aids aren’t be working very well for you? Identify the problem and come up with a solution, so you can get active in your life again. If you suspect your hearing aids require adjustment, contact your hearing care expert as soon as possible.