Taking care of your hearing aids likely feels easy enough. After all, you were most likely given a set of care guidelines when you originally bought your devices. With regard to regular hearing aid maintenance, the majority of hearing specialists will give you a step-by-step instruction tutorial. Still, getting all of that information at once means you most likely didn’t retain some of it. So you still might be wondering, what should my cleaning routine look like? How about my service schedule? How can I make my hearing aids last as long as possible?
These five, easy-to-follow tips can help give you some answers, as well as easy ways to help in taking care of your hearing aids so they work better longer.
Tip #1: Keep your hearing aids dry
Moisture and electronics don’t really jive. While your hearing aids may provide a certain level of water resistance, you typically want to keep moisture away from them. Here are a few ways to do just that:
- Keep a dehumidifier going during those more humid months. When it’s extremely humid, your hearing aids can have more dampness than you would want even inside. And that moisture can compromise the sensitive electronics inside. If you want to get the most life out of your hearing aid as you can, get that dehumidifier going!
- Stay away from using hair products while your hearing aids are in. That is, take your hearing aids out before using a lot of hair spray or hair gel. These types of products can really gunk up your devices.
- Store your hearing aids someplace dry and cool. Understanding the best way to store your hearing aids can be somewhat of a challenge for lots of people. So the steamy bathroom won’t be a great place to keep your hearing aids. It also helps to keep them in the same place every day so you’re not wondering where they went. Also, cats like to play with hearing aids and dogs will sometimes attempt to eat them, so don’t just leave them lying about.
Tip #2: Keep the earwax filters nice and clean
Earwax production is a normal and healthy thing for the human body to do. Hearing aid makers are well aware of this. Consequently, most hearing aids are designed to deal with a modest amount of earwax.
Your task is to be certain your hearing aids don’t become overloaded with ear wax. This means checking and replacing the wax guards when needed (and making that an element of your hearing aid cleaning routine). Depending on which model hearing aid you have, you can invest in specialized little tools for this and we can help you with that.
How frequently should wax guards be swapped? Well, for the majority of models, it will be around once every month or so.
Tip #3: Keep your batteries charged and fresh
Your batteries keep your hearing aids going. Your hearing aid will last a lot longer if you keep your batteries fresh. So there are a few battery-care steps you can take:
- Be sure all of the battery contacts and components are dry. If they are dirty or wet, you can make use of a clean, dry cloth to wipe them. As with electronics in general, moisture will lead to a bad time here.
- Invest in a rechargeable hearing aid or a battery charger: This will save you a lot of money on wasted batteries.
- When you’re not using your hearing aids, don’t forget to switch the power off. This just kills the battery for, well, no good reason. And that means your hearing aids may stop working when you least want them to.
Tip #4: Clean your hands before handling your hearing aids
Your hearing aids are going to spend most of their time in your ears. But they don’t get there by themselves. You use your fingers to put your hearing aids in, and those hands could contain all types of things (salt, maple syrup, Cheeto dust, and so on). By design, hearing aids are very sensitive and probably won’t do well with things like crumbs.
Generally, you should only touch your hearing aids with clean hands. So give your hands a quick wash before you need to take them out and handle them.
Tip #5 Keep us in the loop
It might feel like, once you have your hearing aids, you can just forget all about your hearing specialist. Typically, though, this isn’t the situation. Here are several very good reasons why scheduling routine appointments with us is still important.:
- To keep track of and monitor the advancement of your hearing loss.
- Cleaning and maintenance.
- To help you ensure your devices fit well.
When something breaks, what should you do?
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, something goes wrong with your hearing aids (maybe you accidentally step on them). You should call us as soon as possible in cases like this.
If your device needs any repairs, or you need to get a new one, we can help with that.
Schedule an appointment with us today to discuss your current or next set of hearing aids.