Tips For Adjusting To Your Hearing Aid

If you’ve ever bought a one-size-fits-all item, you know that it very rarely results in a perfect fit from the get-go. Like many of the products that enhance our life experiences, we need to take the time to learn the ways they can be integrated to work perfectly with our unique selves. As such, it can take some time to adjust to your hearing aid once you’ve made the decision to improve your hearing health and decrease your listening effort. In time, communication, conversation and the full audio banquet that life has to offer will be yours in full volume.

This also pertains to switching brands and models. You may have long worn a hearing aid, but decided it was time for an upgrade. Because all hearing aid lines work with their own particular concoction of technologies and design, expect a grace period of time in which you and your new and improved hearing aids adjust to one another.

Communicate With Your Hearing Health Professional

Don’t be afraid to voice questions or raise concern with your Audiologist at the time of your fitting. These issues are precisely why a good hearing health professional is there to guide you through this process. And believe us when we say: They’ve heard it all before! If something is on your mind or you’re experience a particular issue, chances are good that they’ve encountered your particular problem in the past and are familiar with the next right steps to take to address it.

Retuning Your Auditory System

The ear and brain work in a complicated, symphonic tandem to make sure that the sound that enters your ears makes its way to your brain in a precise and true manner. When hearing loss has developed over time, the path of those messaging conduits become less accessible. Think of your favorite hiking trail. If many years passed without anyone traversing it, the path would become overgrown and it would be difficult to find your way.

It simply takes patience and time to similarly reorder the partnership between the receiving instrument of your ear and the translational receptors in your brain. Take a few weeks or months to slowly wake those passages back up again. And if sound, long muted, feels like a sensory overload, give yourself a little break to recoup your balance. Time and consistency goes a long way, here.

Choose Your Best Interaction Option With Your Hearing Aid

Perhaps the most common actual adjustment you’ll make to your hearing aids is that of fine tuning the volume. Of course, this is rarely a ‘set it and forget it’ type of scenario. Adjusting to your new hearing aids takes practice, which includes that of figuring out which settings work best for you in various listening environments. While many leading technologies automatically adjust to align with changing listening environments, there will nonetheless be times when you’ll need to adjust this manually.

There are a few options to do so. One is to make the adjustment right on the hearing aid. A handy accessory to have is a wireless remote. These are so compact they often fit discreetly in your pocket and have large buttons making it a convenient and foolproof way to adjust volume controls. Finally, tech savvy folks have the option of installing and configuring a smartphone app that contains any listening adjustment you might want to make. Apps fit seamlessly into the life of a person who conducts much of their business via their iphone or Android device. And, the act of adjusting volume or listening program can be done while appearing to do something as benign as checking for a text message!

Finding the most efficient mode of working with your hearing aids is truly up to you. Remember to be honest with yourself and your hearing health professional about the type of user you tend to be. If you’ve never opened a smartphone application in your life, maybe an analogue adjustment or a remote to control your settings is the best option for you. There’s no right answer, only the right answer for your particular habits.

With New Hearing Aids, Practice Makes Perfect

Perhaps the most useful message to take away from adjusting to your hearing aids is that Practice Makes Perfect. Pack your patience when you take your new hearing aids out into a world where the audio environment can change quickly and unexpectedly. Eventually, you and your hearing device will work together as harmoniously as if you were made for each other.

If you have questions or concerns about your new hearing aids, contact us at Hearing Spa of Florida. We are here to support you on your journey to better hearing.