The Journey to Better Hearing is a powerful guide to many in that it openly discusses the pathway of challenges and rewards to better hearing.
In taking your first step in your journey to better hearing by having your hearing professionally evaluated, you may have been told that you have a permanent hearing loss. At this point you reached the first fork in the road. One fork is denial, while the other is acceptance. The denial fork appears something like this:
I hear fine except when background noise exists. I'll just avoid those places and I'll be OK.
I hear fine. The only problem is that people sometimes mumble.
I hear what I want to hear.
My hearing loss isn't bad enough to need hearing aids yet.
The acceptance fork looks something like this:
Much as I hate to admit it, I know I have a permanent hearing loss.
My family and friends have been getting after me for quite a while.
I'm sick of asking to have things repeated so much.
I want my hearing to be better.
If you have chosen acceptance, you are ready for the second part of your journey. The most important factor in whether you will be successful in using hearing aids is, like everything else in life, attitude! Also important are a willingness to learn, a determination not to quit, patience, and practice.
To begin, do not expect instant gratification from your hearing aids. Hearing aids are not like eyeglasses, which allow you to see clearly immediately. To achieve better hearing, it takes practice and more practice! Why?
Eyeglasses, for instance, simply have to correct for a misshapen cornea, but the optic nerve is not affected. However, most hearing losses have hair cell damage in the cochlea. That damage distorts the signal to the brain. Your brain has become accustomed to the way you have been hearing. Your brain, therefore, can be overwhelmed by all the sounds you are at last hearing. Even when your hearing was good, you weren't acutely aware of hearing many of the sounds you will now hear because your brain automatically tuned out all that wasn’t important. Now, however, your brain's tuning out capability has become rusty. It hasn't been receiving much of the information it used to tune out.
Therefore, a perfectly normal part of adjusting to your hearing aids is to think some of the following:"My voice sounds funny; I sound like I'm talking in a barrel"
"Unless I am in a quiet room, all the other noises are so distracting I can't understand conversation."
"Things sound tinny and artificial."
Don’t worry. With patience and practice your brain will adjust. Here is a simple example of how your brain will acclimate itself to sound over time:
I spent the night with some cousins whose house had a railroad track behind it. At 5:00 a.m., I about leaped out of bed because a train went by. I couldn't imagine anyone being able to live with such loud noise, so I later asked my cousins how they dealt with the trains. They answered, "When we first moved here, we were bothered by the sounds, but after a few weeks we got used to them. We don’t even hear the trains now." Their hearing hadn't changed. The noise had simply become a normal, unimportant part of their environment that they were able to tune out.
"Understanding occurs in your brain, not in your ears. Re-acclimating your brain to true sound is a little like priming a pump; you've got to stay with it long enough for the water to flow. Once it is flowing—and it will flow—the hardest part is over." - The Five Steps to Better Hearing with Hearing Aids.
The next step on your journey to better hearing is realistic expectations. Regardless of the level of technology you acquire, they remain to be hearing aids, not replacement ears. Nevertheless, you will certainly have a better quality of life with them than without them.
Focus on the positive things you're hearing, not on the times you're not hearing all you want. Keep in mind that in noisy situations even people with normal hearing don't hear everything. Your hearing aids will help you hear better—not perfectly.
One thing you should not consider getting used to is pain. If your new aids make your ears sore, you need to let us know. Most of the time, we can take care of any fit problems in the office, but on occasion aids have to be remade. Having hearing aids remade is not unusual.
If speech sounds tinny to you, this is also normal. The sound comes across this way because you are now hearing many of the soft, high frequency, consonant sounds you have been missing. It may bother you to hear them at first, but such sounds are going to allow you to understand speech better, once you become accustomed to hearing the tones again.
Background noise is also part of life. No matter the technology available today, we cannot totally eliminate background noise. The more sophisticated circuits certainly perform better in noise, but they don't eliminate it. Some of the new digital circuits have made great strides in easing the understanding of speech in background noise.
Hearing aids also require proper maintenance. They break down because they exist in a hostile environment for electronics. Think about it: Earwax is a combination of salt and corrosive body acid. Perspiration is also full of salt and moisture. Some people rarely have a problem, while others face more frequent breakdowns. Dust, hairspray, and other elements we impose upon our hearing aids are also damaging to them. For many reasons, routine maintenance is a must.
Daily practice with your hearing aids is another essential. Starting out slowly at home is not only perfectly fine, but it is advisable. The ultimate goal is for you to want to put them on when you get up in the morning and not want to take them out until you go to bed at night. The biggest mistake people make is to acquire hearing aids and then only wear them to church on Sunday, or when the kids come over, or on some special occasion. Unfortunately, they never adapt to their hearing aids because they never give the brain the time and practice necessary to adjust to all those unfamiliar sounds. The learning curve for successful hearing aid usage extends from six weeks to six months. If you stick with the process and communicate with us any concerns or questions you have, you will succeed.
In completing your journey to better hearing, you’ll be so happy that you took that first step and all the ones to follow. Better yet, improved hearing also makes your overall journey—life—
all the more fulfilling!
