Practice
Hearing aids are not like glasses and they take time to get used to. Practice putting in your hearing aids and wear them consistently throughout the day. There is a lot to absorb during a fitting appointment so if you remember nothing else, make sure you know how to insert your hearing aids confidently and correctly. Be certain you can identify left and right. Practice at home, sometimes in front of a mirror if that helps, then practice in different situations and using your opposite hand. The goal is to become so comfortable that inserting your hearing aids feels automatic. If you continue to struggle, return to your Hearing Healthcare Professional and ask for help. Do not leave until you feel confident.
Increase Your Daily Wear Time
Wear your hearing aids and gradually increase your daily wear time. This is the most important factor in adapting successfully. Your goal is to wear them all day from when you wake up until bedtime, removing them only for showering. If you are not wearing your hearing aids, your brain is not being stimulated by sounds it has missed. Training your brain is part of hearing better again and consistent use builds auditory memory.
Keep a diary of how long you wear your hearing aids each day. Start with a few hours around the house. Wear them while watching television, talking with your partner, or sitting outside listening to the birds. Increase wear time daily if everything feels comfortable. Make note of sounds you like or dislike and anything that feels uncomfortable or unnatural. These observations are important to discuss at your follow-up appointment. Persistence pays off and many people later wonder why they waited so long to begin wearing hearing aids.
Noise and your hearing aids
While you are acclimatising to your hearing aids, gradually build up to noisy environments. The world is full of sound and jumping straight into heavy traffic or crowded places can be overwhelming. Start at home and become familiar with everyday sounds you may not have heard for a long time. Once those sounds feel comfortable, slowly progress to noisier environments such as cafés and shopping centres.
Even with normal hearing, listening in background noise is challenging. Hearing loss adds another layer of difficulty because damage to inner ear cells affects the ability to separate speech from noise. High-frequency speech sounds such as “s”, “th” and “f” are often lost first and these sounds carry important meaning in words. Background noise is typically low frequency which means it can overpower speech, forcing your brain to work harder to interpret conversations.
Hearing aids support your brain in managing background noise but improvement takes time and practice. Research shows that with consistent use, the brain can relearn how to process speech in noisy environments. Higher technology levels provide more advanced speech processing and noise reduction features. Once you feel comfortable, challenge yourself in more complex listening situations and keep notes of anything that does not sound right so adjustments can be made.
