Most HA users realize that their hearing seems far worse when they remove their HA and slowly recovers a bit over time. The explanation I’ve heard is that your brain is no longer working as hard to hear with HA and removing them, your brain can’t suddenly work hard again to hear. Sounds reasonable. I’m not sure how quickly your brain adjusts to not wearing HA. And my question is if this is the case and you are going to be retested for new HA or just a new adjustment, should you go without your HA for a period of time before this test to let your brain get back to a normal non-HA state? And how long should this period of time be, hrs, days, weeks or…? Anyone know? Seems like if I just removed my HA and took a hearing test the results might be far worse than if I had waited some time period or am I not understanding this? Thanks
Interesting question, I’ve always
just removed prior to the test. We do have a couple of resident pros on the forum, @Um_bongo @Neville how do you guys conduct your tests in this regard.
No, I wouldn’t expect this to make a difference. Exposure to damaging noise can induce short term threshold shifts, so it’s better to wait 48 hours after a shift at the factory if you can. But hearing aids shouldn’t do this. The perceptual change you’re experiencing isn’t actually a shift in detection thresholds, which is what is measured at a hearing test.
Thanks for clarifying this for everyone.
My experience is a sample size of one but it correlates with what Neville says - I had a period in my teens where my hearing was very stable and I was getting tested a lot because I was having some other issues with my ears and they wanted to make sure it didn’t impact my hearing. During this time I would sometimes be unable to wear HAs for weeks or months at a time and so some tests were done during those periods while others were while I was wearing my HAs all the time. My tests stayed consistent either way.
Thanks everyone. I might still do an experiment one day to satisfy my curiosity. Seems perception without numbers is really just a gut feeling and facts and data matter…imagine that, lol.
I would simply do normal and rest fully.
Don’t listen to anything that causes your ear to go numb and earful before your test.
I would test in the morning hours because after waking up time, my ear is fully fresh. Everything sounds so clear and crisp sharp.