How Do You Maintain Hearing Aids?

When you first use hearing aids, you feel glad that you’ve now got a renewed sense of sound clarity and a self-confidence boost. In short, hearing aids have significantly improved your life in many ways.

The thing about hearing aids is they are innovative devices. They’re also pretty resilient and are water-resistant, making them perfect for use in all weather conditions. However, it’s important to keep hearing aids working at their best at all times.

When you first received your hearing aids, your audiologist will have given you some tips and instructions on how you should maintain your hearing aids. But, what if you’re unsure of what to do?

Daily Maintenance

When you first get up in the morning, one of the tasks you should do as part of your morning routine is to clean your ears. That’s because earwax build-up can cause problems with hearing aids, such as blocking sound outlets.

Earwax build-up can affect some styles of hearing aids, like ITC (in-the-canal) and ITE (in-the-ear), more than others. When you clean your hearing aids each week, there will probably be a minute amount of earwax inside them.

Before you sleep at night, you should remove your hearing aids and take the batteries out of the battery compartments. Put those batteries in the charging dock supplied by the manufacturer, and leave the compartment doors open.

Next, put your hearing aids on a clean, flat surface somewhere. The air in your home will dry out any moisture that may have accumulated inside the hearing aids during the day.

Weekly Maintenance

At least once a week, you should clean various internal components of your hearing aids. For example, you can use your dedicated hearing aid cleaning cloth to wipe the inner part of the shells.

You can also use a soft brush designed exclusively for hearing aids to sweep away any dirt and debris that may have accumulated. Next, use an earwax pick to clean the microphone and receiver ports.

Lastly, place your hearing aids near a clean, dry surface to help dry out any retained moisture. You could also put them by a dehumidifier if you wish. It can make sense to clean your hearing aids in the evening, shortly before you go to bed.

5 Things to Avoid Doing With Your Hearing Aids

Finally, there are some things you should never do with your hearing aids if you want to ensure their longevity:

1. Don’t keep them on when you have a bath, shower, or go swimming. Hearing aids are not waterproof;
2. Don’t keep them on when you apply cosmetics or toiletries to your face each day;
3. Never clean your hearing aids with water or any alcoholic cleaning solutions;
4. Never clean your hearing aids with sharp objects, as they could cause irreversible damage;
5. Avoid keeping your hearing aids on when you have any scans or x-rays at a medical facility.

Maintenance procedures for hearing aids are straightforward and will soon become second nature. If you don’t have the right cleaning tools, you can buy them from your audiologist.