In my post COVID lock-down world, I seldom wear my hearing aids. In fact averaged over the year, it comes to about one hour of use per week.But I have had two Audiologists tell me that I should wear my hearing aids almost all the time. One said that new high-tech HA’s won’t do well if not always worn. (That I would need to acclimate to the HA’s) But I live in a very quite home so silence sounds about the same with or without HA’s.
Any thoughts?
I agree with your audiologist. I have been wearing aids for over 18 years and my aids go on when I get out of bed and I never take them off until I get ready for bed.
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I can’t hear anything with my Aids so I wear them in the home as well.
You hear with your brain as well. If you don’t stimulate the hearing / brain, then I’ve been told it’s easier to decline.
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This can said of any HA, not just new “high tech” it’s very important to wear them as much as possible.
Well not quite, I mean there’s environmental sounds everywhere, running water, creaking floor boards, microwave beeps ,opening and closing doors, TV, these you need to hear as well, it’s not just speech as such, so living out on the farm or in town, you should use your HAs.
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one of the reasons why you need to wear hearing aids is because the brain degrades over time. Listening to sounds is like exercise, if you don’t use that part of the brain it gets lazy over time. It can also affect your communication and ability to recognize words. It is desirable to maintain communication as much as possible or to listen to a speech, for example, a course of something. Cliff Aud said on youtube that untreated hearing is linked to dementia.
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I got used to cooking with hearing aids… Then recently I cooked without wearing them; I didn’t hear the timer and I almost burnt the food 
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I’m far from deaf, but I do have hyperacusis. So I have little trouble hearing running water, creaking floor boards, microwave beeps ,opening or closing doors, I have no desire to amplify those noises.
I got out my old Radio Shack SPL meter. In the house the needle doesn’t move on the most sensitive range, I’m a retired broadcast and audio engineer (classical music).
I do watch a lot of TV. I use closed-back headphones with a rather elaborate volume, balance and equalization system, that I often adjust in half dB steps.
I usually don’t start wearing mine for the first hour or so after I get up. Sometimes though shortly after I get up my tinnitus screams so loudly it’s either wear the aids or scream back, which annoys the wife.
Once I start wearing them for the day I wear them until bedtime.
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Why bother to buy the aids if you don’t wear them. But by not wearing them you are making things worse for you in the long run. I found out when I first got my first set of aids just how much damage I had done over the years by not having and wearing aids. My word recognition was terrible, my language skills was terrible, and my communication skills was terrible. I have now been wearing aids for 18 plus years and over that time period I have had to have speech therapy, and listening skills training. Skills that I more than likely would have had more naturally if I had been wearing aids for the decades that I didn’t.
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I have plenty of patients who will take their hearing aids off if they are at home reading or otherwise don’t need them at a particular time. The only thing I would be cautious of is if I have a patient who is having a hard time adapting to the sound of his/her hearing aids, and then I find out through datalogging that the hearing aids are only being worn an hour or so per day, then I would recommend increasing wear time to help with acclimation.
Not wearing the hearing aids during all waking hours is not in itself a problem. I would be more concerned about WHEN the hearing aids are not being worn. The patient who takes his hearing aids off when he is reading at home does not bother me as much as the patient who takes his hearing aids off at parties and church because he feels they aren’t helping.
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Wow, if you can still hear those sounds without HAs then maybe you don’t need them, could you post your audiogram, this would help everyone, thanks for mentioning you suffer from “hyperacusis” this changes your situation quite a lot.
Well the main problem is Bilateral dehiscence of the Superior Semicircular Canals.
“hyperacusis” and being 81years old don’t help.
Hearing and being bothered by some sounds is one thing, understanding some people speaking is another.
As a note. Today I drove a relative to and back from the hospital for minor surgery. So I spent about two hours in a rather quite hospital waiting room with no hearing aids, but the miscellaneous noises were unpleasant. When the aide called my name another person had to relay the message.
Wearing hearing aids in a very quite room still doesn’t compute.
Yeah I get what your saying now, so this is not actually a HA issue, but more on the actual physical/mental side of things, this is a super rare condition, I honestly can’t offer any real advice, I’d like to think that you’ve achieved the most you can get from using HAs under the circumstances, which isn’t much.
Hyperacusis can often be treated with consistent sound enrichment, and over time the intrusive sounds become less intrusive.
BUT, SSCD is a challenge.
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Why find out through datalogging? Why not ask the person?
Patient report and datalogging do not always match. Sometimes the datalogging is wrong, though.
I haven’t intentionally followed the data logging results in my fitting software, but the couple of times I’ve noticed it I’ve thought that it looks like it’s essentially recording the amount of time that the aids are on (not in the charger or turned off). If that’s the case, I could just leave 'em on the table all day but the data log looks like I’m wearing them.
It’s not just for how long they are on, they also log what program you use and volume, streaming etc. But why are you looking at ways to “trick” the system.
They most likely have asked, data logs can then confirm and then make recommendations if needed.
Yeah, you could if you wanted to be sneaky. Most people don’t want to lie about their hearing aid use THAT badly. Parents tend to underestimate their children’s use by about 1-2 hours. I think when adults over-inflate their use they tend to say that they wear them “a couple hours a day” which is accurate, but then they leave out “once in a while”.
This is what I would have expected, thus my question. Why not just ask adults rather than be all Big Brotherish and go to data logging? And if they really don’t want to wear them, calling them out with data isn’t likely to get them to wear them, is it?
Not looking for ways to trick the system. My comment had to do with the quality of the data the aids collect. It’s crude enough to be wrong. I’ve sometimes taken my aids off while reading for quiet or working out so they don’t get sweaty and just laid them on a table by my chair rather than putting them into the charger. But the logging system would be recording that I’m wearing them during that time. And if I forget or choose not to put them back on for hours–even more error in the data.
Last thing I’ll say about it so I don’t move us too far away from the OP’s topic.