After a lot of careful thought and consideration and finally after putting it off for in some cases years, you finally decide to purchase your hearing aids. The first step has been successfully taken but there are still potential pitfalls ahead for you that you must be aware of. Do not to lose focus on hearing to the best of your ability with your new hearing aids. 
Problems you encounter may lead you to cancelling your hearing aids because you are not convinced of the benefits they are giving to you.
If you consider as a person with a hearing loss, you only know what you can hear and don’t know what you can’t hear, so how can you be entirely sure that the prescription within your hearing aids provided by your hearing aid dispenser is indeed the correct one? The answer is that you don’t,as there are other factors that you must also be aware of before you give them back.
Is your motivation high enough to persist with any of the problems you may encounter?
As a hearing aid dispensers we on occasions encounter clients who have committed to buy but later cancelled either before or after their hearing aid fitting. A cancellation before the hearing aids are fitted may occur because the client has been pushed into having hearing aids by peer pressure, either from the dispenser, a family member or friend, when in actual fact their desire to do anything about the hearing loss was not high enough and thus a change of mind has occurred.
We will always compare the quality of our hearing to the people around us. Many times people have said “I don’t think my hearing is that bad” but how can they judge the quality of their our own hearing if they don’t know what they can’t hear? The truth may be that a friend or family member past or present has had a greater problem than themselves and they compare their own hearing to theirs.
Similarly you may encounter a hearing aid user that has a certain design or size that you feel that you could get on with, when in fact their hearing aid may not be suitable for you as your hearing loss differs to theirs.
If there is dissatisfaction after the hearing aid is fitted or at post fit, then there may well be reasonable justification for this and discussing your problems with your dispenser is imperative, rather than giving up. Some reasons for this may be-
You will not see any benefit when the hearing aids are in or out of your ears.
Possibly the hearing aids may not be working due to a dead battery or because wax from your ears has blocked or muffled the sound in the filter. One occasion last year a client came in and said just that and wanted to return the hearing aids. The client had forgotten that the very small batteries only lasted a week or so and had not changed them. I replaced the batteries and re-explained to the client that they were working and after this follow up call he was fine and understood. Do not be embarrassed if this or any minor problems like this happens, as you may cancel purely due to feeling silly, when in fact the dispenser encounters similar issues like this every day.
Another reason for a feeling of lack of benefit may be that the hearing aids during the initial fit are working at 80% of their potential, so that the brain has a chance to rehabilitate to the new sounds that have been missing for years.
If the hearing loss is a high pitched loss associated with the clarity element of their hearing and there is little or no damage to the low tones associated with loudness, then the client may have lesser difficulties with their hearing, when listening in quiet but then have a greater issue when trying to hear in situations where there is back ground noise.
So unless the client is in the environment when their problems are compounded, then they will feel that the problems they have with their hearing is a lot less and therefore not realise the benefits. This can then lead them to think that the problem they have invested their money in isn’t that bad and therefore resort back to denial of the problem.
Also this type of hearing loss will not need volume or low tone amplification as there is no damage, making the improvements in their hearing more difficult to discern. The difference may only be noticeable for “ssss” sounds, “th” sounds, “ph” sounds and “fff” sounds.
Your own voice sounds unnatural
This is a very common issue that may have many different reasons attributed to it but can in most cases be simply resolved. Whenever hearing aids are fitted, especially for the first time, the client is unsure as to how the hearing aids should sound. After all we only know what we can hear, so how do we know whether the hearing aids are doing everything they should be? We don’t !!
If the hearing aid user experiences a tinny or metallic sound in their own voice or in other peoples voices, this is generally because they have not experienced the sensation of hearing these sounds for a long time and the brain sometimes initially interprets the higher amplified sounds.
Either encouraging the client to persevere in the short term, or by turning the higher tones down will solve this problem in the short term but the latter will reduce clarity and also the benefit which the client should be made fully aware of by the hearing aid dispenser. This is another reason why Hearing Aids at Trade give a 60 day money back guarantee, so that the client is given plenty of time to acclimatise to their new hearing aids.
My voice sounds like I am talking inside a barrel is generally attributed to occlusion, where an over amplification of low and mid tones, or the blocking off of the normally heard low and mid tones because of the hearing aids. This phenomenon can be cured by venting the hearing aids to a greater level or may even need a total replacement by way of open fit technology. Some manufacturers have an algorithm to reduce this problem.
I hear an echo in my voice or other people when they speak. Quite often the manufacturers are over zealous in their algorithms by applying far too much amplification to the mid tones because they are important for speech as most sounds in speech are contained there. A reduction in amplification in these areas more often solves this issue unless it is the fault of the processor not working fast enough, ( the latter is a rarity ).
The sound of newspapers is too sharp or when I flush the toilet it sounds like Niagara Falls. In more advanced hearing aids, the dispenser quite simply has more control over the different sounds amplified by a hearing aid. If the dispenser can access the control of amplifying softer sounds in the hearing aids, turning them down slightly more often solves this issue.
For more information call us on 0800 0304 542
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