Digital Hearing Aid: 10 Tips to Ease Adjustment

Depending on the degree and nature of your hearing loss, you may find that the decision to purchase a digital hearing aid may be life-changing. Work might become less stressful if you don’t have to strain to hear people all the time. You might start understanding your children’s jokes again. However, the effect may not be immediate, and for most people, there is an inevitable adjustment period. Here are some tips that will help you adjust to your digital hearing aid. These also apply to other types of hearing aids: 1. First, expect that sounds will seem strange for some time after you start using your hearing aid. This is very normal. You have to give yourself time to adjust to your new way of hearing. 2. In the beginning, you will also be very aware of sounds that are very close to you such as your heartbeat, your car engine or your computer keyboard clicking. In time, your brain will learn to filter these sounds as unimportant, and your awareness of them will lessen. 3. Your hearing aid will increase all sounds, that is both the voice of the person you are having a conversation with, and all background noise as well. Practice talking to one person first before talking to two people or a group of people at once. This way, you will not be overwhelmed. 4. Your hearing aid may make a buzzing noise when you use your mobile phone while using it. Tell your hearing aid provider that you use a mobile phone. When it’s time to change your mobile phone, look up a model that it is hearing aid -friendly. 5. Although your hearing aid may feel weird in your ears in the beginning, it should not hurt you. Tell your hearing aid provider if your hearing aid is too loose, or if it hurts your ear, so that he or she can make the right adjustments. 6. Just keep wearing your digital hearing aid even if you find it a little uncomfortable. This is the fastest way to get used to it. The more you postpone using it, the more you postpone getting used to this device. 7. Remember that listening to people also includes watching their facial expressions, the tones in their voices and their hand gesticulations. Since you will not hear every word that they say, watching out for these other things will help you in your communication efforts. 8. To take care of your digital hearing aid’s batteries, turn it off when it is not in use. Also, replace batteries as soon as they die, so that your hearing aid remains functional. 9. To take care of your digital hearing aid, make sure that you keep it away from moisture or heat. Also, follow the cleaning instructions on the user’s manual. It would also help not to use any hair products such as hairspray and gel when using your digital hearing aid. 10. Be careful also to keep your both digital hearing aid and its batteries out of the reach of children.