Hearing Aid Troubleshooting

Squealing Noise:

• Hearing aid inserted improperly. Reinsert hearing aid.
• Ear may be blocked with wax. Have ears checked by your Doctor or Audiologist
• Weight change. See your Audiologist.

No Sound, Dead Hearing Aid:

• Dead battery. Change battery.
• Microphone and/or receiver blocked with wax or debris. Clean microphone with brush. Clean receiver with tools that came with your hearing aid.
• Make sure hearing aid is on Microphone setting.

Problem Solving
The process of learning to hear again involves adaptation to a number of changes. Some of these are very positive changes and some require some understanding of the changes made to the hearing system when we put a hearing aid in the ear.

One change is the partial plugging of the ear canal. The effect of this change of the canal shape and size on a persons sensations and one's own voice is known as the "occlusion effect." Simply put, occlusion is having the feeling that your ears are stuffy like when you have a head cold.

When you hear your own voice, you hear it two ways. First, through the vibration of the skeleton which happens when your vocal cords are in motion. You can demonstrate the "bone conduction" hearing of your own voice by firmly plugging the canals and talking. You can still hear your own voice quite well. That is because you hear it from the inside. If you allow some air to pass around your fingers while they are plugging the canals, not by removing the fingers, but by lifting them to allow air to leak in, the sound of your voice is decreased. This is similar to the use of venting in hearing aids. A hole is drilled through the aid to maximize the amount of air getting in the canal to reduce the sound of your own voice and the earplug sensation of the plastic in your ear. Those with better low pitch hearing will find occlusion to be more of a problem than those who suffer with loss in the low region.

Feedback is a very common complaint with hearing aids. It's that whistling sound you have heard when someone near you has a hearing aid that is poorly fitted or adjusted.

Feedback simply is amplified sound bouncing off the ear canal walls, eardrum and earwax, leaking out through the vent of the hearing aid or around the hearing aid and getting fed back into the microphone of the aid. So, feedback occurs if the aid is too loose, the aid is too small for the amount of power required, the vent is too large, the aid is put in the ear incorrectly, or ear wax has built up in the ear canal. With today's technology, feedback should never be much of an issue. With proper fitting and adjustment of hearing aids, feedback rarely occurs, even with telephone use.

Itching of the ears sometimes happens with hearing aid use. This is simply due to the moisture that collects between the hearing aid shelf or surface and the ear - kind of like the moisture on your legs when you sit on vinyl furniture. Your skin can't breathe and it sweats - this sometimes itches. Sometimes skin that is very sensitive shows a mild allergy to the material used to make the hearing aid. Special hypo-allergenic materials can be manufactured to reduce this possibility if you have sensitive skin. Other times itching is due to wax. Again, this can be easily cleaned to reduce the itching.

Wax accumulation is sometimes stimulated with the use of hearing aids. The body's natural defenses identify that there is something in the ear that is not normal. It begins to increase the wax production to try and move the intruder away. This is how we prevent debris from reaching the ear drum. The body doesn't know what is there, only that it's foreign and the natural defenses kick in. This doesn't typically last long and will often calm down within the first several months of hearing aid use.