Some people tend to think that wearing hearing aids is like turning up the volume on a TV; everything gets a little louder and easier to understand. But there’s a lot more to it. Hearing loss comes on so gradually, you may have no idea just how much sound you’ve been missing. Turning on a set of hearing aids for the first time can be both wonderful and overwhelming.
That said, we’d like to share some tips on adjusting to your new hearing aids:
Get used to the world being louder.
Your hearing aid, being a 21stcentury model, probably adjusts its volume based on your surroundings. Experiment with different environments and get used to the changes you can expect in the course of a day.
Take some time.
It took a while to develop hearing loss, you can’t expect to get used to having all that sound back in one day—and to having something in your ears all day. Commit to the idea of making your hearing aids a natural part of your life and stick with it. If you find yourself fatigued (processing all that new sound can do that), it’s okay to put your hearing aids aside for a bit. Just make sure you get back to them soon.
Get used that that “new voice”
It’s not just everything and everybody else that will sound different; you’ll sound different, too. The sound of your own voice through your hearing aids may be startling, at first.
Say hello to old noise
Along with the things you wished you could hear, hearing loss also took away some of the things you might not care about hearing. When your hearing is normal, you learn to automatically filter out sounds that aren’t immediately important: the hum of appliances, a television or radio in another room, traffic noises and other sounds happening outside your house. When you haven’t heard such things clearly in a long time, they can call a lot of attention to themselves.
Challenge yourself, but not too much.
Background noise is one the hardest things for some with hearing loss to contend with, so put yourself into those situations. Get into a group conversation, but not one where everyone is speaking across a room. Go to your house of worship, performances, lectures, places where people are speaking to a crowd; just don’t sit far away from loudspeakers or in a place where you can’t see the person speaking.
If you’re about to begin wearing hearing aids, trust us: you’re going to love them, if you take the time to get used to them. By the way, there are also some things you shouldn’t do when getting used to your hearing aids. For instance, if you have a volume control, don’t turn it up to high or the sound will get distorted.
And please, don’t expect to have superhuman hearing and try to hear people whispering on the other side of a room!
