It takes time....People learn and adapt at different rates. Some people need a day or two to learn about and adjust to their hearing aids, most people need a few weeks and others may need a few months. There is no perfect way to learn about hearing aids.

I usually recommend...

Wear your hearing aids for a few hours the first day and add an hour a day the following day, and the next, and the next, until you are wearing hearing aids most of the day. Do not try to set an endurance record! I recommend that you interact with people familiar to you during your first days with new hearing aids. Start in a favorable listening environment (such as one-on-one conversations in quiet) and work towards more difficult listening situations. Let your friends and family know you're using your new hearing aids.

Please do NOT wear them to a cocktail party or restaurant during the first few weeks, thinking " this will be a good test! " It will absolutely not be a good test it will be very difficult! You should not wear hearing aids in noise until you are very accustomed to them!

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You can expect that after you have adapted and learned to use them properly (usually 4 to 8 weeks), many " speech sound " benefits from hearing aids will become available to you. You can expect your ability to perceive speech correctly will be enhanced. You can expect most conversations will be much easier with the hearing aids. You can expect more relaxed hearing, more confidence and more satisfaction from your conversations. Additionally, you can expect to hear warning sounds more readily with the hearing aids, than without!

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Virtually all patients wearing hearing aids complain about background noise at one time or another. There is no way to completely eliminate background noise.

Remember, when you had normal hearing there were times when background noise was a problem. It is no different now, even with properly fit hearing aids! The good news is there are circuits and features that help to reduce (or minimize) background noise and other unwanted sounds. In fact, there are research findings that clearly show that digital hearing aids with particular circuits, FM options, and directional microphones can effectively reduce background noises. Please speak with your audiologist about this.

Many early digitally programmable (and even some digital) circuits, which claimed to reduce or eliminate background noise, actually filtered out low frequency sounds. This indeed made the sounds appear quieter, however, not only was the background noise made quieter, but so too, was the speech sound.

Newer ways to reduce background noise are based on timing and amplitude cues and other complex noise processing strategies, which 100% digital hearing aids can process. These methods work, but are not perfect. Directional microphones are available and are useful as they help to focus the amplification in front of you, or towards the origin of the sound source. Directional hearing aids can offer a better signal-to-noise ratio in difficult listening situations by reducing the noise from the sides or behind you. In most 100% digital hearing aids, the noise control features help make noise more tolerable.

The best and most efficient way to eliminate or reduce background noise is through the use of FM technology. Please speak with your audiologist about this.

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