If you wear hearing aids...

You should expect a period of adjustment. It will take you several weeks to adapt to your new hearing instruments. You will learn to insert and remove the hearing aids easily and to clean them. Still, your largest hurdle will be adjusting to the new sounds that your hearing aids will give you. These sounds have always been there, but you have not heard them for a long time. So, you may have difficulty recognizing them. Remember, by being patient your brain will “relearn” all of these sounds.

You should expect to have multiple follow-up visits. After you are fitted with your hearing aids, you likely will have some difficulties hearing in certain situations. During these follow-up visits you should tell me about your experiences with the hearing instruments. I will make changes in the programming of the hearing aids to improve your performance in those more demanding listening situations. New hearing aid users are typically under-amplified with their hearing aids. These follow-up sessions are needed to gradually increase the gain of the aids as you get acclimated to the sounds of the world.

You should expect your voice to sound different. Just as you have not heard the sounds of the world, you should remember that you have not heard the real quality of your own voice. Initially, you will sound louder to yourself, but this perception will soon become the norm and will disappear.

You should expect to hear well in quiet listening situations and have some difficulty hearing in noisy situations. People with normal hearing are able to understand best in quiet listening situations. They have difficulties when noise levels begin to interfere with the speech they are attempting to hear. Even when you are wearing the most sophisticated hearing aids you can expect to have the same problems that normal listeners have in noisy surroundings. During your follow-up visits, I will explain various strategies to help you maximize your speech understanding in noise.

You should expect to have your hearing aids repaired at some time in their lifetimes. Hearing aids are expected to perform in a sea of perspiration and hairspray, twenty-four hours each day. In order to minimize failures, the units must be serviced regularly by us. There is no substitute for regular servicing of your hearing aids.

Some individuals have difficulty handling small objects or tend to misplace things. If this is you, an extended warranty or loss and damage policy should be purchased to minimize any after-warranty out-of-pocket expenses.

You should expect to purchase new hearing aids every four to five years. Hearing aid technology changes rapidly, just like computer technology. The advances that occur over this time period are enormous and will most certainly provide great benefits to you. Keeping the same technology for longer than five years is akin to keeping the same TV set for thirty years. You deserve the significant advantages that changes in technology will bring to your quality of life.

Realistic Expectations: Part 1