So, it’s not all that often that you wear your hearing aids? Perhaps you put them in when you go to a party or go to the theater, but in most cases, you leave them in the drawer. Is it actually necessary to use them more regularly than that?
Over the long term, you create difficulty for yourself if you’re not wearing your hearing aids on a regular basis and that’s an issue. Your hearing could get drastically worse. You could suffer from social isolation and cognitive decline. Your general health could be affected. This article will help you comprehend why you should be wearing your hearing aids.
Why Aren’t Your Hearing Aids in Your Ears?
If your hearing aids are stored in a nightstand drawer somewhere, you likely have an excuse. You may have decided to keep those reasons to yourself. Perhaps you brush off 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? If you go a little deeper, you’ll likely find that there’s a particular complaint at the heart of your irregular hearing aid use. Specific issues are positive because they generate the possibility to find an equally specific remedy.
Some of the most frequent grievances consist of the examples below;
“My Hearing Aids Aren’t Comfortable”
One of the most frequently reported reasons that people stop using their hearing aids normally is discomfort. Perhaps the hearing aid keeps falling out of your ear. Or maybe tenderness and pain are occurring in just the wrong spot with your over-the-ear model.
Hearing aids aren’t supposed to be unpleasant, so if they’re causing discomfort of any kind, something is surely not right. And it’s easy to understand that you wouldn’t want to use a piece of technology that causes pain, frustration or soreness.
Possible solution: If you’re not comfortable with your hearing aids, a follow-up fitting session is something you should consider. A couple little tweaks might be all your hearing aid requires. The size and shape of your ear can even be the basis of an entire customization of some models. You will be capable of leaving your hearing aid in longer if it fits well and is comfortable.
My Hearing Aid Has Poor Sound Quality
It’s possible you don’t wear your hearing aids very often because you find the sound to be fuzzy or tinny. If that’s the case, it’s not shocking that you’ve opted to stow your hearing aids in your nightstand drawer and save them for “special occasions”.”
This fuzzy or tinny sound can happen because hearing aids are doing complicated auditory functions at all times, filtering out some sounds while trying to amplify others. So if your settings aren’t properly adjusted, the sound quality may seem unreliable.
Solution: This issue has two possible answer: calibration and maintenance. It’s possible that your hearing aids are broken in some form or another and require repairs. But it’s also possible that they basically need a simple calibration (usually this is something your hearing specialist can do for you).
When I Wear my Hearing Aid Voices Are Muffled
When you hear people talking, you want to be able to hear them clearly. That’s the overall reason you got hearing aids to begin with! You needed to be sure you didn’t miss any important conversations. So if all the voices you hear are hard to comprehend and are muffled it may be a bit aggravating.
Because your brain and ears aren’t communicating effectively anymore, this problem commonly happens when you first purchase your hearing aids.
The Remedy: Practice. Comprehending conversations is something your brain will have to become accustomed to, so putting yourself in situations where you can hear people conversing regularly will be helpful. Try reading along with an audiobook or reading along with the closed captioning while watching NCIS. Just having more conversations with the people around you is a perfect way to practice, as well.
Finding Answers
You can find an answer regardless of why you’re not using your hearing aid. And you need to use your hearing aid consistently in order to protect your cognitive health and the well being of your hearing.
So if you’re not using your hearing aids? After determining the issue, find a solution, so you can help your hearing aids, and all that they help you hear, part of your daily life. If you suspect your hearing aids need adjustment, get in touch with your hearing care expert as soon as possible.