If you’ve been living with hearing loss, you may wonder how a hearing aid will help. It’s good to know more about what these devices can and can’t do so you can prepare yourself for the realities of wearing one. While they’re not a cure-all, they do help you better understand the world around you and can greatly improve your quality of life.
Who Can Use Them
You may be seeing signs of hearing loss if you:
- Ask other people to speak up or repeat themselves.
- Have trouble hearing people on the phone.
- Strain to hear in group settings.
- Listen to the TV or radio at a louder volume than other people do.
A hearing aid can help. Hearing loss happens for many reasons, but the overall types are:
- Sensorineural hearing loss. This is damage to sensory nerves in your inner ear. These nerves pick up sound signals and send them to the auditory nerve. This is the most common type of hearing loss. It can happen because of age, lots of loud noise, injury to your ear, disease, certain drugs, or you may inherit it.
- Conductive hearing loss. This hearing loss happens when sound can’t get through your outer or middle ear to get to your inner ear. You may have had an injury that caused it, or something could be blocking your ear canal, like an infection or an abnormal bone.
- Mixed hearing loss. This is when you have both sensorineural and conductive hearing loss.
If you have severe or total sensorineural hearing loss, hearing aids won’t improve your hearing. Your doctor may suggest a device called a cochlear implant instead. A cochlear implant is placed in the cochlea and stimulates your auditory nerve to help you hear.
How They Work
Hearing aids are electronic devices powered by a battery. You wear them in or behind your ear. Each hearing aid has a small microphone that picks up sound. A computer chip changes that sound into a digital code and amplifies it in the form of sound waves. A speaker called a receiver delivers the sound to your ears.
A hearing aid won’t make you hear the same way you did before hearing loss. You’ll be able to hear soft sounds better as your hearing aid amplifies them. But the sound is electronically altered and will take some adjustment.
Benefits of Hearing Aids
Not being able to hear affects your ability to participate in the life around you. This can have a negative impact on your social life, mental health, and professional success.
There are many reasons to wear a hearing aid to help you better hear and interpret sounds around you. They can:
- Help you understand someone else’s words during a conversation
- Improve your communication skills
- Give you more independence as you age
- Reduce tinnitus (ringing in your ears)
- Reduce falls
- Boost brainpower
- Lower your risk of dementia
- Improve mood
- Prevent loneliness
Hearing Aid Challenges
Though hearing aids are an incredible tool, there are some points to consider about wearing them, such as:
They can be expensive. Although the cost of hearing aids varies widely, you should expect them to cost in the thousands. In addition to the cost of the devices themselves, there may also be accessories or other options that are extra. Check with your insurance company to see if they cover part or all the cost.
You have to maintain them. Hearing aids need to be cleaned regularly and as directed. You should also keep them dry and out of extreme temperatures. Take care with personal products such as hairspray while you’re wearing them. Replace dead batteries as soon as they stop working. Turn your hearing aids off when you’re not using them. If you have a prescription for your hearing aids, you’ll need to see your audiologist once a year for adjustments.
They may be uncomfortable. Your hearing aid will fit snugly in your ear, and at first, your ear may feel “full” when you wear them. Over time you will get used to the feeling. They shouldn’t hurt, so if you’re having pain or soreness, stop wearing them until your audiologist can adjust them.
Getting Used to Your Hearing Aid
It takes time to adjust to the new normal of wearing a hearing aid. You might notice:
Your voice sounds funny. It may sound too loud or echo when you talk. You should adapt to this after a few weeks of regular hearing aid use.
Sounds are tinny. When your ears don’t hear sounds well, it especially affects how we hear high-pitched sounds. Your hearing aid will likely amplify these sounds more than others. At first, they may sound metallic and odd, but will sound more normal over time.
Background noises are overwhelming. Because you’ve gone for some time without hearing as many background noises, your brain doesn’t automatically filter them out. You’ll likely be very aware of all the sounds around you, such as other conversations, the hum of electronics, or paper rustling. But as you wear your hearing aids, your brain will relearn to ignore the less important sounds and focus on the ones you’re interested in. The more regularly you wear your hearing aids and the better care you take of them, the more quickly you’ll adjust.
Show Sources
Photo Credit: E+ / Getty Images
SOURCES:
Mayo Clinic: “Hearing Loss,” “Hearing aids: How to choose the right one.”
Johns Hopkins Medicine: “Types of Hearing Loss.”
New England Journal of Medicine: “Hearing Loss in Adults.”
Cleveland Clinic: “Hearing Aids.”
AARP: “7 Amazing Ways Hearing Aids Can Improve Your Life.”
South Eastern Care and Social Trust: “Getting Used to Your Hearing Aids.”
