Hi all. I am probably going to be getting RIC or. Mini bte. My question is, can they make soft molds with vents? I have pretty sensitive skin so I’d need something that’s good for that. I need a mold that will move with my facial movements. I feel the hard ones will not and probably start to work their way out. Thanks so much!
Yes they can. The soft silicone earmolds can have whatever vent size is needed. These soft silicone molds can come in different styles too from the big ones to the small discreet ones.
I have KS8 (Rexton/Signia) aids and have tried vented click sleeves, closed click sleeves, and three sets of silicone custom molds. Due to feedback issues in the 3 kHz range the vented click sleeves were not suitable. The closed click sleeves were much better, but there were still some feedback issues. The Rexton rep recommended molds. I tried them and they certainly fixed the feedback issue. However, I found them uncomfortable, and worst of all they wiggled around in my ear causing so much noise when eating that I could not hear anything. This was even after two attempts at making impressions with an open mouth and with a relaxed mouth.
I have now gone back to the closed sleeves (which still have a small vent). They are so much more comfortable that I just put up with the occasional feedback.
Not sure what brand of aid you are looking at, but Rexton/Signia are the only ones that use sleeves, instead of domes. But many people use domes as well and are happy with them. Sleeves and domes are generally silicone and soft. Looking at your loss I don’t think you need custom molds, at least to prevent feedback. See this gain curve chart below for your loss with vented sleeves. The red and blue shaded areas are areas of potential feedback and you are well away from those.
Hi Sierra,
I just updated my audiogram with the one from the audi’s office. That one I had before was just a screening done informally. I don’t really understand those graphs…sorry! Can you explain them a bit more? Thanks!
Here is an updated version with your more complete audiogram. It still has vented sleeves, and I don’t see much risk of feedback. With closed sleeves the risk would be about zero.
This prescription gain is based on your audiogram using the industry standard NAL-NL2 formula. This formula uses compression which means soft sounds are amplified more than loud ones. It is based on the theory that our hearing loss affects soft sounds more than loud sounds. The top lighter curve shows the gain applied to soft sounds (50 dB) vs frequency. As you can see they get the most gain. The middle heavier one is used for normal sounds (65 dB). The lower one is the gain for loud sounds (80 dB). If these curves stay well away from the colored shaded areas of feedback there should not be a problem (based on the computer simulation). Generally the 3 kHz range is the one most susceptible. Since your cookie bite loss is at a lower frequency, I would not expect feedback to be a problem even with open domes. And you would have the option to go to semi open or closed domes if you really had to. These are all off the shelf and generally included in the price of the aids – at least at Costco.
They make ear molds with ear locks to help with keeping the molds from moving.
I tried canal only custom molds and they were the most comfortable. They stayed in with one ear, but not the other. When I came back with my complaint and asked that I get canal again but with an open mouth impression (to get a tighter fit), they went to a half shell, which is kind of like a canal lock. They both stayed in, but one irritated my ear so badly I said that is enough, and went back to the closed sleeves. They are not perfect, but much better than the mold option for me. I dread the day that my hearing deteriorates to the point where I will have to go to a mold. However, that may be an individual thing. Many use molds and like them…
The mold part sticking out fits neatly into the curve of my ear. It locks the mold in place and is also handy to use for removing the mold.
These soft silicone molds are very comfortable.
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Awesome explanations thanks so much! I will definitely try for something soft. I haven’t gotten any yet. But it’s nice to know options.
This was the style I originally asked for, but the fitter talked me into a canal only. That only worked in one ear. Then they went straight from there to a half shell. One was very comfortable, but the other was not. But, for me the real killer was the mold noise from eating food. It was so loud (with all three sets of molds) that I could not hear other people talking when I was eating. And it was there whether or not the aids were muted or not. This may be more of a problem for those with good low frequency hearing.
In any case I have concluded that custom molds are a last resort option, and certainly not the preferred option for me. I have returned my molds to Costco and got my money back. The fitter then admitted that there are issues with molds, but the manufacturer reps (Rexton in this case), push them as a solution.
I get the noise too while chewing. Have learned to stop chewing when trying to listen. The earmolds were worse about noise when new. Within a few weeks it got much better or I got used to them???
My hearing has really gotten worse and the need for molds was needed. Double domes functioned partially but no matter what size used they were constantly walking out of my ears. The earmolds have proven to be best for me.
I’ve gone back to using soft ear molds. For the last 5 years, I’ve had hard ear molds. Soft molds are so much better.
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I have lost track of how long I had molds. However, I’m sure it was over the two months Costco said that they would take them back for. The chewing noise issue did not improve for me, and yes the only way I could control it was to stop chewing to hear. In any case, Costco took them back with no hassle at all. The fitter essentially apologized for the issues I had, and for recommending the molds. Just a guess on my part but I suspect that those chewing noises are low frequency and if one has good low frequency hearing they are much more annoying. For sure, the noise was coming from the molds, not the aids.
I guess the jury is still out on the long-term verdict for me and my custom molds. But I really like them compared to all the different types of domes I tried because the molds fit my ear canals just right and the domes didn’t. I think a lot depends on the shape of your ear canal and how it’s shape changes if at all when you talk and chew, etc. On sensitive skin, it’s hard to be more sensitive than mine - I’m psoriatic so any degree of rubbing leads to psoriatic inflammation-an autoimmune-like problem and I have had no noticeable problem with my ear canals on that score. A lot, as noted by other posters in other threads, depends on who makes your molds and the skill of the person taking the impression. Don’t know about soft silicone - I’d say mine are hard silicone because they don’t deform very much at all when squeezed - but they’re still comfy-made by ReSound. They don’t move at all - perhaps because of the shape of my ear canals. I think with any mold or dome you want to be gentle inserting or removing them because seriously scraping the skin of your ear canal can lead to an ear infection.
Too bad molds are so relatively expensive (except at Costco). I think everyone should try them to see how they work out. I did because I didn’t want to wear HA’s the rest of my life not knowing what I might be missing and for me, they did turn out to be a big plus. I find them easier to clean than domes and perhaps just because of my mold design, hardly any wax ever gets into the receiver openings whereas with domes, which were probably inserted a bit further into my ear canals, every day was a cleaning chore on that score.
So I’d say if you can afford it, just give custom molds a try to prove to yourself that they’re not going to do anything more for you that you can’t get from domes. And get the molds made with Select-A-Vent so you can play around with venting and discover yourself the vent size that works best for you.
BTW, I have good low frequency hearing and I am not bothered by any chewing noises. I’ve always liked to eat crunchy foods, e.g., granola, walnuts, almonds, etc. So maybe I’ve just habituated to crunch sounds I’ve heard most of my adult life even without hearing aid molds. Eating while conversing is a small part of the day and I’d say most foods are not sufficiently crunchy to be an impediment to listening while eating. ReSound also has a quick setting called Speech Clarity that significantly increases the amplification of the midtone and treble range of external sounds, decreases bass input, so if your HA’s are similar you could boost those components of speech to fight any probably mostly bass tones coming through via bone conduction, I would think. Just occurred to me and I’ll have to give it a try.
Edit_Update: Just tried eating a fresh bowl of Cheerios (very crunchy!) while watching the following YouTube lecture on the Markov Decision Process: YouTube David Silver’s 2nd course lecture in the University College-London course on reinforcement learning: Teaching. To see who this mild-mannered professor really is, it’s interesting to look him and his associate(boss?) Demis Hassabis up in Wikipedia. But switching to Speech Clarity and also synchronizing my chewing with the pauses between syllables in the Silver’s voice worked out well - I was wearing over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones, too, which greatly increases the perception of bone-conducted noise, at least for me. I wouldn’t normally want to listen to anyone talking with this setup but I could still hear pretty clearly everything Silver said.
One thing to keep in mind is that molds for RIC hearing aids are made specific to fit the receiver. For that reason they are almost always supplied by the hearing aid manufacturer. Each manufacturer will have different choice for mold materials. Mine were a medium medical grade silicone. There are softer grades, but in my case Rexton does not offer them. So, when deciding on brand of hearing aid you should also ask about choice of mold materials, if you are really sold on going with molds.
With BTE aids the mold has to fit your ear of course, but since the sound comes through a tube it only has to fit the tube size which comes in standard sizes. That can open up the supply of molds to third party services, which may give you more of a choice, but that will depend on who your fitter deals with. Not sure why one would choose a BTE over a RIC with your loss though. RIC aids have about 75% of the market for a reason. RIC aids tend to be smaller, and the wire to the receiver less visible than a tube.
My first set of Resound silicone molds (with vents) drove me crazy with the squeaking with every chew and every move of my mouth or eyebrows. They’d been made with directions for me to sit very still, with my mouth closed. I had them remade with me moving my mouth to talk while the putty set. That made a huge difference, for me.
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I made my own with silicone from ebay. I keep a click do.e on, then the silicone. Works much better than expected, and with no vent.
Neither kind move or compress with your facial movements. It is your ear canal that “adjusts”. The soft mold may have more friction and stay in better but it probably depends more on your ear canal shape than type of material.
The hard molds are normally very comfortable.
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I think I have tried every mold “Out” there over the years, in the last few years I tended to go for the soft silicone totally occluded type because of my loss, these were anti allergenic because of recurring ear infections… I switched from BTE to Ultra power RIC’s this year… Interestingly I had a conversation with my Audioligist a couple of weeks back on how they made my Ric custom molds and she said they were made via laser printer and apparently the do them overnight and they are ready in the morning! This was after one of my molds receivers had blown in my good ear and she switched it to a temporary soft shell dome until another custom one was printed, she reconfigured my marvels to suit and low and behold I liked the custom Ric in one ear and dome in the other better than the 2 custom molds… Strange!!! Cheers Kev:-)
might be a 3D printer?
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