Tanya is being fitted for a new set of hearing aids by her hearing specialist. And she’s experiencing a little anxiety. Her anxiety isn’t actually that bad. But she’s never had to use hearing aids before, and she’s a little stressed about how comfortable she’ll feel with a high tech gadget inside of her ears, particularly because she doesn’t really like earpods or earplugs.
These concerns are not unique to Tanya. Fit and general comfort are worries for many new hearing aid users. Tanya has every desire of wearing her hearing aids. Now she won’t need to crank up the TV so loud that it disturbs her family or even the neighbors. But how comfortable will those hearing aids be?
How to Adapt When You First Wear Your Hearing Aids
So, are hearing aids uncomfortable? The short response is: some individuals find them to be a little bit uncomfortable when they first use them. Early levels of comfort will fluctuate because, as with many things in life, there’s an adjustment period. But you will get more comfortable over time as you become accustomed to your hearing aids.
Often it’s just good to recognize that these adjustments are will happen. Knowing what you should expect can help you acclimate to your hearing aids in a healthy, sustainable, and comfortable way.
There are two steps to your adjustment:
- Becoming comfortable with a higher quality of sound: In some cases, it may be the sound quality that you need to adjust to. For most people who have been dealing with hearing loss for a long time, it will probably take some time to get used to hearing a full assortment of sound. When you first start using your hearing aids, it might sound a little loud, or you might hear noises that you aren’t used to hearing. At first, this can be distracting. For example, one patient reported that he could hear his hair rubbing against his jacket. This is not abnormal. In a short period of time, your brain will make the appropriate adjustments to noises it doesn’t need to hear.
If either the sound quality or the physical positioning of the hearing aids is disturbing you, it’s critical to talk to your hearing specialist about adjustments to enhance your overall comfort and progress the adjustment period.
How Can I Enhance The Comfort of My Hearing Aids?
Over the years, luckily, there are a few strategies that have worked pretty well.
- Practice: The world may sound quite a bit different after you get your hearing aids. Adapting to sound, specifically speech, might take a while. In order to get the hang of it more quickly, there are lots of practices you can do like watching a movie with caption or reading along with an audiobook.
- Get the right fit: Fitting your ears comfortably is what hearing aids are designed to do. It could take a few consultations with your hearing specialist to get everything functioning and fitting just right. You may also want to consider a custom fit hearing aid for maximum comfort and effectiveness.
- Start slow: You don’t have to wear your hearing aids every day from morning till night when you first get them. You can start gradually and build up from there. Start by wearing your hearing aid for one to four hours a day. Having said that, you’ll want to work up to using your hearing aids all day, but you don’t have to begin there.
Making Your Hearing Aids More Comfortable
Your hearing aids may feel a little awkward for the first few days or weeks. Pretty soon you’re hearing aids will be a comfortable part of your everyday life and the sooner you make the adjustments, the sooner this will happen. Wearing them on a daily basis is crucial to make that transition happen.
Pretty soon, you’ll be focusing on is having good conversation with friends.