If you recently made the choice to get hearing aids to treat your hearing loss, congratulations! You’ve taken an essential step in prioritizing your hearing health.
As you may have discovered, it can take a bit of time to get used to wearing hearing aids. To make things a little easier, consider the following tips.
Start Out Slowly
Though it should never be painful, it will feel a bit unusual to have something in your ear the first day or two. For this reason, you should start out slowly by wearing your device around the house, ideally in a quiet room. Remember, your brain and ears are picking up on sounds they haven’t heard in a while, and it can easily get overwhelming.
You may also only be able to wear your hearing aids for a few hours each day at first, and that’s OK. Don’t push it. Instead, aim to gradually increase the amount of time you wear your device over the first few weeks until you are comfortable consistently wearing them throughout the day.
Visit Quieter Spots at First
When you feel that you are ready to try out your hearing aids in public, try picking a quieter spot at first. Whether that’s a café, library or maybe even meeting a friend for a peaceful walk through Deer Haven Park, choose somewhere where the background noise won’t be too overwhelming. Also, it may be easier to only meet up with one or two people at first, so that you don’t have to deal with multiple voices talking at once.
Be Patient With Yourself
It’s important to remember that you are not the only one who needs a bit of time to adjust to your hearing aids. Plenty of other users have had the same experience.
A 2014 focus group of 16 adult hearing aid users concluded that “getting used to hearing aids is a challenging multi-factorial process with both psychosocial and practical difficulties besides demands of adjusting to hearing-aid input.”
So be sure to take your time, be kind to yourself and reach out to your audiologist right away with any questions or concerns. If your hearing aid feels uncomfortable or it’s been weeks and the sound quality just doesn’t seem right, you may need further adjustments so that your device can better meet your hearing needs.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, call The Hearing & Speech Center today.
