Caring for your hearing aids likely feels easy enough. After all, you were probably given a set of care instructions when you initially bought your devices. The majority of hearing specialists will give you a step-by-step how-to when it comes to routine hearing aid maintenance. But it’s quite likely that you might forget some of that information that you got all at once. So you may still have questions like, how often should I clean my hearing aid? What about my service schedule? How can I make my hearing aids last as long as I can?
These five, simple-to-follow tips can help provide 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. Even though your hearing aids might offer a certain amount of water resistance, you generally want to keep them dry. Here are several ways to do just that:
- Keep a dehumidifier running during those more humid months. When it’s extremely humid, your hearing aids can have more moisture than you would want even inside. And that dampness can compromise the delicate electronics inside. Prolonging hearing aid life might mean keeping that dehumidifier going.
- When you’re wearing your hearing aids, don’t use hair care products. When you’re going to utilize hair spray or gel, take out your hearing aids. These kinds of products can really gunk up your devices.
- Keep your hearing aids someplace dry and cool. Many people question what the best way to store hearing aids is. So the steamy bathroom won’t be a very good place to keep your hearing aids. And in order to keep track of your hearing aids, store them in the same spot every day. Also, cats love to play with hearing aids and dogs will sometimes try to eat them, so don’t just leave them lying around.
Tip #2: Keep the earwax filters nice and clean
Earwax production is a healthy and normal thing for the human body to do. It’s also something that hearing aid designers recognize is going to happen. Consequently, most hearing aids are created to deal with a modest amount of earwax.
It’s up to you to make sure there’s not too much earwax on your hearing aids. So make changing out your wax guard, when necessary, a regular element of your cleaning schedule. You can buy and utilize special cleaning tools for this, depending on what model you have (ask us for guidance here).
What is the replacement schedule for earwax guards? You will swap these wax guards around once every month on most models.
Tip #3: care for the batteries
Your Hearing aids depend on your batteries for power. 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:
- When you’re not wearing your hearing aids, remember to turn them off. This just drains the battery for, well, no good reason. Because of this, when you most need your hearing aids, they might not be charged enough to work.
- Make certain 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. This is yet another place in your device where moisture is the enemy.
- Get a battery charger or a rechargeable hearing aid: This will save you a lot of money on wasted batteries.
Tip #4: Only use clean hands to handle your devices
Your hearing aids are going to spend most of their time in your ears. But they don’t get there on their own. You use your hands to put your hearing aids in, and those hands could contain all sorts of things (salt, maple syrup, Cheeto dust, and so on). Your hearing aids are delicate devices by design, so crumbs aren’t exactly great for them.
Generally, you should only handle your hearing aids with clean hands. So give your hands a quick clean before you have to take them out and handle them.
Tip #5 Keep up with your hearing specialist
You may presume that you won’t require any help from us once you’ve purchased your hearing aids. But… this is not usually correct. Most individuals who have hearing loss will want to schedule routine appointments with us for the following reasons:
- To help you fine-tune your fit.
- To keep track of and monitor the development of your hearing loss.
- Cleaning and maintenance.
When something breaks, what should you do?
Sometimes, something could go wrong (maybe you accidentally step on them) despite your best effort. When this happens, you should contact us as quickly as you can.
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 talk about your current or next set of hearing aids.