Firstly, make sure your digital hearing aids are professionally fitted
Wearing digital hearing aids, for the first time should be an enjoyable experience, although they may take a little getting used to. At the hearing aid fitting, expectation levels and motivation should be established in relation to individual circumstances including nature and degree of hearing loss, lifestyle demands and the style and digital hearing aid model.
If you have never worn a hearing aid before, the idea of wearing one, can be daunting and knowing what to expect is difficult. So at Leightons you will be reassured to know that our fully qualified hearing aid audiologists provide a full explanation of how digital hearing aids might sound, feel and improve your life.
During our hearing consultation and prior to our free hearing aid demonstration we will help to examine situations where you are struggling to hear and what your expectations are from wearing hearing aids. We will also discuss situations and individual sounds that you specifically want to hear more clearly.
Understanding your individual hearing difficulties, experiences and expectations will allow us to demonstrate the most appropriate digital hearing aids for you.
We will also discuss expectations of wearing a digital hearing aid and help explain how sounds that you have gradually lost over time are recovered and how to adjust to hearing these sounds again.
If you are concerned about your hearing and wish to learn more about wearing a digital hearing aid, please contact us for a free hearing assessment or a free hearing aid demonstration, you can now book your appointment online.
Wearing digital hearing aids - the first week
The easiest listening situation should be in your own home, so we suggest that you first start wearing your digital hearing aids at home. With your new digital hearing aids you will notice that sounds like running water, footsteps on carpet and even the rustle of newspapers will be louder. When you first wear your digital hearing aids you should expect to be enlightened by the sounds you hear but aware that some sounds might be loud to start with. This is quite normal and will recede as you get more used to wearing your new digital hearing aids.
Having conversations for the first time with your new digital hearing aids will allow your brain to start processing and understanding speech sounds. Your new digital hearing aids, will sometimes initially make your own voice sound louder but you will soon get used to hearing your voice as it should be. You do need to work at listening as well so a good tip is to wear your digital hearing aids and practice listening to voices and sounds that are important or familiar to you. Sometimes it will be amazing how new digital hearing aids allow you to follow a conversation that is taking place in the living room while you are in another room in the house.
Listening to the television with your new digital hearing aids, is also a good way to acclimatise to your new hearing. If you are using Bluetooth devices which stream the sound directly into your hearing aids, then you will most likely be enjoying the clarity of sound with immediate effect.
It's important to remember that the hearing loss of one person differs from that of another, and the fine tuning of the digital hearing aids may be crucial. Leightons hearing aid audiologists, offer a full and bespoke aftercare programme in order that your hearing aids amplify the right frequencies (high and low pitch) so as to provide the correct level of amplification in a frequency range where you may be particularly sensitive to sound - so that the digital hearing aids have a positive effect all the time.
Digital hearing aids and the telephone
There are many different tips to help you use your new hearing aids to hear more on the telephone. All of today's leading digital hearing aids have special programs to help you hear better on the telephone. Oticon hearing aids use Bluetooth to transmit the sound into a phone adaptor which then directly streams the voice from the telephone into your hearing aids. When wearing digital hearing aids for the first time, test them out on the phone by calling someone you know and test how much better you can hear whilst listening with your new digital hearing aids.
Wearing your digital hearing aids in noisy situations
After wearing your hearing aids at home and feeling comfortable with them, it's time to listen to the benefits in noisier situations, such as a busy restaurant. The digital hearing aids are designed to amplify speech, whilst cutting down on the unwanted sounds but also expect to hear more generally than you would have without your hearing aids. All today's digital hearing aids offer a programme to help combat loud or unwanted background noise, such as street noise. At the same time as suppressing these unwanted noises, the latest digital hearing aids should be able to provide clarity with the ability to hear what people are talking about at the same time.
Digital hearing aids and the feeling in the ear
Even though the latest digital hearing aids are designed to be light and easy to wear, it may take a bit of time getting used to having something in the ear. It's most important that the digital hearing aids fit properly, and Leightons experienced hearing aid audiologists offer a full one hour bespoke fitting service in order to make sure the fit and feel is perfect. The hearing aid fitting is vital to creating a comfortable fit and to provide the correct amplification. An incorrectly fitted earmould of a behind-the-ear hearing aid or the shell of an in-the-ear hearing aid that does not fit tightly in the ear canal, will result in the hearing aids will not work optimally or they will whistle (feedback).
Leightons' experienced hearing aid audiologists are always on hand to provide advice on your hearing and your digital hearing aids, and can tune or even refit the hearing aids for better comfort or hearing clarity. Digital hearing aids will offer excellent benefit but it's true that practice makes perfect and this means wearing your digital hearing aids in all environments and providing feedback to Leightons hearing aid audiologists will help to enable you to hear as well as possible.
Contact Leightons for a free hearing test and full assessment if you have any concerns about the performance of your digital hearing aids.