Rumor #1: The more I wear my hearing aids the more I am going to rely on them, and my hearing will get worse
Wearing hearing aids is like wearing eyeglasses, and the purpose of hearing aids and glasses is to improve our life quality. Instead of becoming more dependent on hearing aids, wearing hearing aids will not make our hearing sensitivity worse, in fact, it will help us to slow down the process of worsening our hearing sensitivity. We really hear with our brains, not our ears.
Our ears are just functioning as a conducting system to send sounds up to the brain, if no sounds reach up to the brain, it doesn’t matter how good our ears are, we won’t be able to process and hear what others are saying. Our brain is like a piece of muscle, and to keep the hearing part of the brain in function, the “nutrient” is sound.
With the help of hearing aids we can continue sending sounds up to the hearing part of the brain, and therefore we can keep that part of the brain active and in function. Ultimately, we can prevent or slow down the process of worsening hearing sensitivity.
Rumor #2: I am going to wait till I can’t hear, then I’ll get fit with hearing aids
This is also not the right thing to do. Just like any other parts of the human body, our ears will also deteriorate over time as we age. Whenever you are suspecting a decrease in hearing sensitivity, or you noticed that you often ask others to repeat themselves, or others often need to speak to you loudly, or you tend to like to turn up the TV volumes, or you noticed that you are experiencing hearing difficulties with the presence of background noises or in group situations these are some of the classic signs that you should seek for audiological services. Hearing loss can really impact your life quality.
Once you get diagnosed with hearing loss, you should seek the appropriate treatments as soon as possible; therefore, we can slow down or prevent further decrease in hearing sensitivity. Additionally, the more severe degrees of hearing loss that you have, the harder it is to treat with hearing aids.
Rumor #3: The more expensive the hearing aid, the better it is.
No, this is also a fault statement. Buying hearing aids is just like buying a car or many other things in life, they come in various levels of technology. The higher the technology level of the hearing aid it is the fancier, and the more bells and whistles you would have for your hearing aids, and as we slowly go down in tiers you would slowly lose the fancier features that the premium level hearing aids would come with.
For example, noise reduction features. Compared in between the premium and basic level technologies, the premium level hearing aid would be able to reduce the most amount of background noises, and the basic level technology would be able to reduce the least amount of background noises, and of course, the mid-level technology would be able to reduce background noises in somewhere between the premium and the basic level of technologies.
One might wonder which level of hearing aid fits the best. This ultimately comes down to your lifestyle. If you are someone still in school or working, you have an active lifestyle, and the amount of background noises fluctuates dramatically on a daily basis, then the premium level technology hearing aid would fit you the best, because the premium level hearing aid can reduce the most amount of background noises.
On the other hand, if you are retired, spends most of your time in quiet, having more one-to-one conversations throughout the day, watching TV, and with the minimum amount of background noises throughout your daily life, then the basic level technology would be good enough for you, and if your lifestyle is somewhere in between, then the mid-level technology would be more suitable for you. Therefore, buying hearing aids ultimately comes down to your lifestyle, not just the more expensive the hearing aid is the better it would be.
Rumor #4: Wearing hearing aids my hearing will go back to completely normal
No, this is also a fault statement. Hearing aids are just a treatment option for hearing loss, it does not cure hearing loss. The hearing aid can only work with the amount of residual hearing that you have, it can only bring your hearing sensitivity back towards normal as close as possible, and it will not be able to bring your hearing sensitivity completely back to normal like it once was before.
Rumor #5: Hearing aids are bulgy and they don't look good
With drastic improvements in technologies nowadays, hearing technologies also improved dramatically. Unlike hearing aids 25 or 50 years ago, hearing aids today have a more discreet and delicate look.
Rumor #6: I don’t need to wear my hearing aids for a long period of time
This is also an incorrect statement. Like what it has mentioned in the earlier part of this article, we ultimately hear with our brains not our ears, and with the help of the hearing aids, we can continually send acoustic information up to the hearing part of the brain.
Therefore, the key to perceiving the maximal amount of benefits from hearing aids is to wear them consistently! You should treat wearing hearing aids like a full-time job, wear them every day, and wear them at least 6 – 8 hours or longer daily, if possible.
Rumor #7: I got my hearing aids, and now I can wear them in background noise situations since that’s where I struggle the most
No this is not a smart thing to do, especially the first time you ever wear hearing aids. On average it takes an individual with hearing loss seven years for them to have their first ever hearing test, and seven years is a long period of time. Therefore you have missed a lot of sounds for at least seven years, if not longer.
With the help of hearing aids, if you suddenly jump into a noisy environment, your brain most likely would feel overwhelmed, and you would think everything around you is too loud, and you would think that the hearing aids are not working. To prevent this issue, the recommendation is to slowly ease yourself into noisy environments with hearing aids.
