Adjusting to Wearing A Hearing Aid 24/7

I started working for InSound Medical several years ago, and I immediately grasped the concepts of the benefit of a hearing aid such as Lyric that could be placed deep in the canal providing invisibility, natural sound quality, and hassle-free hearing. However, I struggled with the thought of a wearer getting used to wearing something essentially in their head, 24 hours a day for months at a time. Would you constantly feel the hearing aid? How comfortable could it be? Would a form of claustrophobia set in or some other phobia with having a hearing aid residing in your body in this way?

Lucky for me, I got to answer all of these questions for myself when a trial was run to test out the comfort of the Lyric’s seals. Although I don’t have a hearing loss, I was selected for the trial because I have ear canals of the size and shape appropriate for the Lyric device and had no previous Lyric or hearing aid experience so I could provide a first-time user answer in regards to comfort.

In April, 2008, my right ear was fit with the Lyric hearing aid and since I do not have a hearing loss, the amplification on the device was set at the lowest settings so that when turned on it would feel like I was hearing at my normal levels. My initial impressions were that it was similar to wearing a new watch for the first time. You know and are aware that you are wearing it, but it was not uncomfortable in the least. Leaving the clinic, I was instructed that it can take up to a week for your body to adjust to having a hearing aid in your ear and that if it became uncomfortable at all that I could take standard over-the-counter pain reliever medicine the first few days as I adjusted to it.

I am a very active person and decided that slowly getting used to wearing Lyric was not an option. So the first thing I did after leaving the clinic was to head with some friends to a San Francisco Giants game. No one noticed that I was wearing a hearing aid, and it wasn’t until I started playing with my SoundLync magnet, turning the device on and off that my friends even asked what I was doing with my ear. Also, for those of you that know San Francisco, the Giants baseball stadium can be one of the windier places in the world on any given night and I experimented with turning the device up to maximum volume levels to see if the wind noise would cause any problems. It wasn’t until the highest volume that I could even notice any difference in the hearing aid from the wind noise I heard in my good ear, and even then it was not bothersome.

As for my comfort getting used to the hearing aid, when I was distracted by events, I didn’t think about Lyric nor was even aware of it. When I was trying to think about the hearing aid, I could still feel it and realize it was there during that first day. In fact when I woke up the first morning after wearing Lyric, though I slept fine through the night, I woke up with my finger resting on my right ear indicating to me that my body was still aware of something different and still trying to get used to the concept.

Day two, I took the Lyric hearing aid through a ringer of new events. I took a long 20-minute shower and when I got out it felt like the Lyric had gotten a little wet, but it was still working. About hour later, the moisture initially felt on the hearing aid after the shower was gone, and as I thought about it, my awareness of even wearing the Lyric had gone down considerably from the previous day. I went through my days activities including talking on the phone, socializing with friends, and playing a full basketball game (Im a heavy sweater too!!) with no need to change my routine and without anyone noticing that I was wearing a hearing aid. I also began to realize the amplification abilities of the hearing aid and the clarity of its sound. Since I do not have a hearing loss, I could turn up the device and get a heightened hearing ability. I could watch the TV at volume one while my girlfriend slept soundly next to me. I could even hear the couple’s secret conversations two tables away at a restaurant if I listened carefully.

However, my biggest amazement came on day three, when I woke up and at first couldn’t remember which ear I was wearing the Lyric in. I still realized there was something different between my ears, but couldn’t without thinking about it carefully determine which ear housed the hearing aid. My body had accepted wearing the new hearing aid, and like a new watch, forgotten after time that you are even wearing it. As my trial ended after a week, I was very enthusiastic that the Lyric hearing aid is a product that when fit correctly can not only provide sound benefit to the patient, but can be worn very comfortably for extended periods of time. It was great to see how quickly my body had gotten used to wearing the device, and I feel that if I had worn devices in both ears that this adjustment may have been even quicker and easier. Although I don’t need a hearing aid yet, Im glad to know that a solution such as Lyric is available for me in the future.