Phonak HA's beeping at startup

Hearing Aids
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#1

Hello; I am so glad to have found this forum! My daughter has mild/moderate hearing loss in both ears and wears Phonaks with an FM add-on. She is 18 months old so she can’t tell us much…we test the batteries, listen through an stethescope and so on.

Recently, one of the HA’s has been beeping at startup. New batteries on day 1; on day 2 battery tester says all is good but at startup we get a beep. Change the batteries again (we always change both at the same time), next day we get the beep. We went the whole day on those batteries and the aids worked (got feedback and amplification when we used the stethescope. It is the same aid each time.

We can’t get in touch with our audiologist for a few days.

Any tips or insight into what is going on? We hate the idea that she is not getting the amplification or is getting beeps or something like that.

#2

I wear Phonak aids and I also self program them. There are normal start up beeps that can be programmed to come on seconds after you turn them on. There is also a melody that plays when they are first turned on before they actually start up. What you are probably hearing are the normal turn on and start up tones. These can all be programmed to whatever you like. I have a six second delay after the turn-on melody before I get the start-up beeps. Ask your audi to let you listen to the different beep tones. The low battery beep is different also.

#3

I think she is talking about the low battery beep. Try some different brand batteries.

#4

I’m a “he”! :slight_smile:

It might be low batteries, but they were right out of the pack. Does that happen…fresh batteries actually being bad, and have that multiple times in the same pack?

#5

Depending on the storage condition of batteries and the age, multiple batteries in a pack can be below the voltage necessary to function. I check mine with a voltage meter if I have any doubt.

#6

mdingles,
It could be something wrong with the FM receiver. Try removing it and see if you still get the beep on start up.

#7

Thanks folks; I’m not sure how to remove the FM receiver from the HA and am afraid to try to learn especially as we are traveling away from home for two weeks. We’ll just keep checking multiple times a day and see if we can figure it out. Maybe we have a bad pack of batteries; if that’s the case we’re soon to start a new one anyway.

#8

Some times it is the brand of batteries. Try a different brand as well.

It’s tough when they are that young - my son was 16 months old when he started wearing his aids. Hang in there and talk, talk, talk. Hearing aids aren’t like glasses where now you can suddenly see. There needs to be quite some time to absorb all the new noises and learn what the sounds mean.

A little bit of sign language will go a long way now too. They can pick that up quicker than speech and it enables them to begin communicating sooner which reduces their (and your) stress. Baby signs are easy to learn and as long as you keep talking and pouring in language verbally too you won’t pigeon hole them into only signing later.

Good luck.
Maureen

#9

mdingles,
You could also have corroded battery pickups in the HA.

#10

I have had fresh batteries not work at all initially. Some manufacturers say you need to wait a minute or two after removing the seal for the battery to fully activate.

#11

mdingles,
Going a little further with prodigyplace’s post, try rubbing the top of the battery with a pencil eraser before putting them in the HA and see if that helps. Sometimes the glue holding the label on the battery gets to sticky and clogs up the holes and keeps the battery from working.

#12

Thank you all so so much for all of this. We’ll go pick up a different brand and new pack of batteries today.

Maureen, my daughter has been wearing her HA’s since she was 9 months old, so half of her life now. We knew from the day we took her home from the hospital that she likely had some kind of hearing loss. We have been involved with early intervenion in NC where we live since well before she got her HA’s. She has EVA so her hearing will likely progress. We are as on top of it as we can be, but are constantly looking for new resources as we move from maybe hearing loss, to definite hearing loss, to sensorial neural (sp?) to EVA and so on. Just trying to get our arms around it all and find good information resources.

Anyway, back to the topic…thank you so much folks!