I couldn’t find a sticky explaining ear moulds so just want to know more about the different types.
Basically I’ve been deaf for 30 years (severe to profound) and have always had ear moulds through the NHS. Was looking at Paradises and Marvels. However it is only available in RICs? What does that mean and how are they different to ear moulds?
Marvels are also available in BTE models - the Naida Marvel, usually for severe to profound losses.
I was initially fitted with domes for the Audeo Marvels, however, felt I was not getting the clarity I could get so asked for custom ear pieces. The info I found on the Phonak website doesn’t quite explain the differences but does let you know what is available.
The custom ear pieces (as they seem to call them now) are the same for Paradise it would appear as per the following form.
Providing your audiogram would help, but it sounds like you have a pretty profound loss. As Demerrara mentions, Marvel is available in BTE models (both Bolero and Naida) Naida is a SuperPower aid. Regarding custom molds, you have a wide variety of choices in both RIC and BTE models.
A ric is short for receiver in the canal. It is a very popular type of hearing aid. It is able to adjust to many types of hearing loss. But like I said many times the type of hearing aids you use depends on your hearing loss. Rics are nice because they fit behind the ear and have a wire connected to a receiver and can be fitted with a wide range of options from molds to domes. The major problem is that the receiver sit in the canal and can get plugged up with wax and oil from your body. It just requires you to clean and change the wax guard every so often. Hope this helps you out.
I’d say wax issues are issues only if your ear produce some significant amounts.
Mine does not, so I got new wax guard on a new receiver (which just died in my ear, wax guard was still shiny). I also didn’t change dome for whole lifetime of that aid, that’s 4 years. I stopped cleaning it after few weeks. Would just every few months remove a bit of wax I see on the outside of the receiver box, with a paper towel. Aid is still working, I’ve just upgraded.
Have this new receivers for around 2.5 months, same domes, zero maintenance and still didn’t notice any residue from outside. Wax guards are also clean, my fitter checked last week.
And to make things worse, I sleep with earplugs, so ears really don’t have a lot of time to air out.
So, you can get wax-lucky also 