It may take up to four months for some people to feel completely comfortable with their hearing aids, but most people adjust in as little as two or three weeks. Vienna Hearing Center, Inc., 124 Park St SE Ste 202Vienna, VA 22180 Hearing Associates of Northern Virginia6862 Elm St Ste 120McLean, VA 22101. Some users can use their hearing aids immediately. However, as a general rule, it should not take more than two weeks for users to acclimate to their hearing aids. In addition, there should be a gradual but noticeable improvement over the course of the fortnight.
After about two weeks, you should wear your hearing aids during all waking hours (except while showering or swimming, of course). This consistency is important for the brain's adaptation to amplification and will ensure that the devices support hearing as much as possible. When you start using hearing aids, you may experience a series of new emotions and observations. Because people usually wait up to 10 years to treat hearing loss, there are many new sounds to get used to when adjusting to hearing aids.
While listening to (or rediscovering) sounds that were previously lost will be exciting, it's also normal to have concerns. If you don't have a telephone coil in your hearing aid or if the phone doesn't have the ability to connect to one, you can tilt the phone slightly forward so that it's just above the device's microphone. Ask your hearing healthcare professional if your device has a telephone coil, and if so, be sure to ask them to activate it when the device is set and programmed. Consequently, the vast majority do not even notice the symptoms of hearing loss and only discover its condition after visiting an audiologist.
Reacclimatizing the brain to true sound, after years of distortion caused by hearing loss, can be quite a challenge. But for now, let's address some of the concerns you may have getting used to your new hearing aids and what you can do about them. Don't try to get your devices to do what fully functioning ears can't do, such as hearing faint sounds from far away; they don't work that way and you can further damage your hearing if you do. You can also try to use your hearing alone to discern between different types of sounds or speech patterns.
For behind-the-ear devices, the microphone is usually located in the part of the hearing aid behind the ear. However, consult a hearing care professional if “normal loud sounds, such as the roar of a car engine or a door slam, are painful. There are several reasons why people put things off, but during this time their hearing will worsen. Millions of people are diagnosed with hearing loss every year, and it's not just older people who suffer from hearing loss.
Some hearing health professionals encourage you to write down things you are noticing that may be annoying to you. As you fit your hearing aids, get into the habit of carrying your batteries with you wherever you go, as you probably do with your keys and mobile phone. But if your hearing loss involves a loss of higher frequencies, some sounds may sound weak at first.
