Good luck with that Ruth… I hope you have a wonderful time, and enjoy every minute… Cheers Kev xx
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Used Xceed as main HA’s and Naida & tubes as standby. Used tissue to clean moisture inside the tubes or just put them into the dryer during the night. Visit the following website on the weather during the Oct & Nov month.
Sri Lanka weather October - temperature, climate, best time to visit | Selective Asia
You definitely need a rain cloth if there is a lot of trekking in the jungle! Nov is the wettest month.
Keep warm during the night.
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I don’t think you mentioned the make. I don’t think anyone has covered hot and humid in your ear.
When gardening in hot weather I sweat and my ears sweat. Any wax will melt. I find wearing the aids when working in such conditions are uncomfortable. If you can, remove the aids when doing hard work. It is also safer as you are at greater risk of them falling out. If you do take them out put them in a secure waterproof pouch with the silica gel as suggested.
Get plenty of earbuds for cleaning your ears - 6 weeks - 50x2x2 as you will probably want to clean your ears more than daily. Take tissues to clean the aids too. You will need a dry pouch for the tissues too. Dankailo says you will get rain. It can be rain like you have never seen. People have questioned about showering or swimming in with their aids. Trust me, you will experience both with out going in a shower or a pool.
A bush hat might be useful.
A further thought, as I said, we don’t know if you aids use a tube to transmit sound to your ear or have a receiver in the ear. The receiver in the ear is the type for which you use wax guards. You may need to change wax guards frequently.
The link below suggests carrying spares. I have had to replace the receiver on one ear 3 times. Once a wax bud jammed, then the wire broke at the aid end, and last week the receiver failed. The first time I was without the aid for 10 days as it was sent away for servicing. My audiolgist gave me a number of spare wires and receivers and I changed the last two myself.
Found this link, much of what has been said above is in here but there are other snips too.
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Last suggestion, research for audiologists near where you are going, you might find one not too far from where you are going.
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Xceed and Naida do not have wax guard, and it is IP68. @Zebra is using stay-dry tubes and ear mold. Moisture can be dry using tissue/handkerchief or air drier. Only when you are working in the fields or bathing the elephants, then take it out and keep in dry bottles or plastic bags. Inside the house, you have fans, a couple of tissue will help.
You will sweat while eating curry (spicy) or exercising. Yoga work out will not result heavy sweating.
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Thank you for this. I’ll take a look.
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I do find this myself even living in the UK.
I just picked some up from Aldi today.
I’ve got a glasses cloth to clean my actual HAs.
Luckily I have BTE HAs that don’t have a receiver in my ear. Think my BTE HAs might survive a bit better then RIC HAs over in Sri Lanka.
I’m quite looking forward to being outside in the rain but without my HAs in.
Oh I have a bush hat already. I use it here in the summer.
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To be clear, a hearing aid that has a wire connection from the BTE into the ear has a receiver in the ear. A hearing aid that uses a tube to convey sound from the air to the ear does not need wax guards and the dome or plug is easier to clean.
I admit I found the idea of this transmitter in the ear being called a receiver was odd.
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And to be clear, xceed and naida HAs are BTE and not RIC HAs. Your distinction is correct. But Ruth knows her HAs.
WH
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Just going to post here what I’m taking as it might help someone who searches this post.
I have Behind The Ear Hearing Aids.
Taking
- 2 x glasses cloth to dry the hearing aids.
- Spare stay dry tubing.
- Tools to help me change tubing.
- Spare ear moulds + the ear moulds I’ll be wearing.
- Travel Dry tub which is called a Dry Caddy made by Dry and Store.
- Spare hearing aids + hearing aids I’ll be wearing.
- 3 packs of 6 x 675 batteries.
- 2 pairs of Ear Gear to help protect against sweat and rain.
- Case to store hearing aids in.
- Travel tool kit made for hearing aids.
- Puffer to get water out of my tubing.
- Hat!!
Blimey, hearing aids need a lot!
This travel tool kit has helped me so much and I love that it’s all together. Thought I’d post a photo as not many people know of this tool kit.
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Hence my initial suggestion of bringing a Jodi-vac. I understand electrity may be scarce, but how scarce? a Jodi vac can work in under a minute. A wax clogged HA is a useless HA.
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It’s a “receiver” because in the phone-with-a-crank-on-the-wall days the thing you put to your ear “received” the voice from the other end of the line. So, you see, that thing in your ear receives the signal from the hearing aid. I agree that is no longer intuitively obvious, but there is a historical reason for calling it a “receiver.” My mother would have called it a “doohickey.”
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Hey,
Could I ask you how you found this volunteering opportunity?
I’ve been to Sri Lanka twice before and had no success in getting an answer from the volunteering projects I contacted.
It´s okay! Have a great experience there!
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I would get a drying gadget, rainforests are very wet, I take mine off when I’m walking in rain. Take twice as many batteries and cleaning wipes as you think you need. It’s probably hot there so you’d be sweating more, and you might be using them more than usual so would need more batteries.
Also not hearing related but:
Take sugar, salt, and pepper. Those little paper sticks would be fine, but they’d want a little food bag to help keep them dry.
And bug bite relief cream.
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I’ve made two extended trips to South America, with two visits to the jungle of Colombia for fishing. I was wearing Phonak Marvel 70-R
Both trips I packed the minimum - ear wax filters, charger, charging bank (more for my cell phone, not so much for my HA Charger), extra ear domes, all sizes. I was originally fitted with large power domes, however my ears became irritated during the heat so I went down to the medium power domes. A source for 120v (even in the jungle) was never an issue, I guess I was lucky. I didn’t pack a back up set of HAs because the M70s was my only pair. If I left tomorrow, the M70s would be the backup. My rechargeables gave me 14 - 16 hours of service each day. I even had a remote session with my audiologist via the Phonak app from Bogota, Colombia via hotel WiFi.
I took my Roger Select which came in very handy at airport and hotel check in. I have a huge problem with background noise, and without the Roger Select I had a hard time hearing the agent who was just across the desk. Frustrating.
Much has been written on this forum about moisture, humidity and hearing aids. I experienced no issues with my HAs despite the heat and humidity and I perspire heavily about the head. I’ve since purchased a Redux Home Dryer for my Lumity 90s with ear moulds. I used it every night for the first week, each result was between 2.0 ul and 5.0 ul removed. I don’t know if that’s normal.
Safe travels!
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OK! I am late to the game here, but want to commend you for your spirit of adventure AND volunteer work coming up in Sri Lanka’s rainforest. You’ll be there during the Maha monsoon season, so you’ll want to have gear for almost daily curtains of rain.
Will your volunteer work be mostly outside or in? If outside, a gortex rain jacket that reaches the thighs and has a brimmed hood would be ideal - your arms would be free for reaching things (like taking your aids out), and there may be useful pockets to put things in. Also, the hooded brim would stay put in any wind (think horizontal rain) and keep your head and ears dry.
For 20+ years I’ve traveled with a small, round, waterproof canister on a neckstring for putting my aids in. I can’t find these sold online anywhere, but a square version like this
might fit the aids in case you want to take them off (in a dry spot!) and put them in a small container to keep on your person. I do this at the beach or even camping/rustic showering.
Ear Gear works ONLY if kept dry, cuz if they get wet (as mine would at the salon) they act like a wet sock over the aids. So with Ear Gear I’d keep a hooded gortex jacket on or wear a stiff-brimmed hat (that the wind/rain doesn’t turn the brim up on you) like these. I travel with a hat like this cuz they pack flat as a pancake.
I’d ONLY take battery aids to an outpost in the rain forest. Power is uncertain and mainly power outlets are also unknown. You don’t want to be plugging in a charging base next to the coffee pot - could be pretty rustic out there. Or risking a power SPIKE that may fry your electronics. Moisture is the kiss of death to batteries and aids (and I just “sank” my 312 Phonaks with a sweaty workout at the gym), so indulge in that portable HA Dry & Store dehumidfier. Keep your batteries wrapped in a dry cloth inside a good Ziplock baggie.
Consider bringing one of those lightweight toiletry kits that HANG UP so you can keep your aids, batteries and toolkit up high off the floor away from any critters. (or put them in your zipped suitcase at night).
Think about bringing every pair of BATTERY aids (and their battery supplies) you own. I’ve been on trips where 2 pairs out of 3 fail on me, and you don’t want to be without options for so many weeks. Yes, even a pair of aids going back 10 yrs is better than no aids.
Unrelated to aids, I find that in really buggy places where the bite can result in sickness worse than an itch, DEET UP. Yes it stinks and you don’t want to eat food with your hands if they have DEET on the fingertips, but there’s no repellant better than 100% DEET. Apply liberally to clothes and try to stay covered up if outside.
And now I hope you have a WONDERFUL trip!
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Does DEET harm hearing aid plastic parts?