Deaf Awareness – Karen’s story
Around 21 years old I had some investigation done and discovered that I had something called Otto Sclerosis. This is condition where the bones in the ear middle ear do not chime properly, leaving me with a hearing impairment.
At the age of 26 I had given birth to my son and notice that my hearing had worsened. The condition that I have is something that gets worse during pregnancy. I soon had another child and it became more difficult and I was seen by the ENT specialist team in hospital where they decided to give me a hearing aid. Initially I only had one hearing aid and these were analogue hearing aids at the time but it was a bit of a lifeline for me. I remember the first time the hearing aid was switched on in my ear and I could hear my husband behind me making fun of me to see if I could hear him and I could! I could even hear a telephone ringing in the other room, which was first time I’d had that in many, many years, so I knew that this was going be life changing. I was fortunate enough to be given two hearing aids, they were great but then I received a digital version which meant that the clarity of the sound was amazing.
Talking on the phone was always very difficult because I often had to have it on loudspeaker because I really couldn’t hear even with a hearing aid, then discovered that repositioning the ear piece higher than my hearing aid really helped.
During that time phones were not advanced enough but as we know technology always advances and I was given another set of hearing aids, just when you thought things couldn’t get better, you can connect hearing aids to your mobile phone which meant that I can talk and not have to struggle to hear because the sound goes straight into the hearing aids like head phones! It’s fantastic, it looked quite funny to people at first as I didn’t need to hold the phone up to my ear. It’s worth knowing that if you have a compatible phone, you can actually download an app on your phone and connect this to your hearing aids. It means that I can listen to music, I can watch films on my telephone and I can have, conversation on telephone with anybody whether it’s via WhatsApp or the general phone settings and this makes it very private and I can hear every word.
It means that I can hear people properly and not have the background noise because your hearing aids are so clever and advanced that they dampen out the background noise.
I wanted to share my story and thought it would be helpful to educate people about hearing aids and how to look after them. Important things about hearing aids are to check that their batteries are working. If you have the app for yourself or you’re helping someone who isn’t able to tell you if they are working, you can link the hearing aids to the app. Batteries will show on the app and they will tell you how much batteries are left in the hearing aid. You can also click on the system to find my hearing aids because believe it or not people lose them, they have a GPS system which is linked to the hearing aids. Different types of settings on your hearing aids or on your app have music voice or speech. I tend to use the speech because it makes everyone else’s speech and my own speech clarity very good. If you are somewhere noisy the volume can be turned down slightly to ensure that your hearing aids prevent damage to your hearing. One of the best features of hearing aids is the user can turn them off which is ideal for me because I cannot to hear my husband snore!
Things to remember about a hearing aids:
· Face the person you are speaking with:- in my experience if someone’s is not facing me, even though I’ve got my hearing aids in, I probably won’t hear every word you say.
· Speak clearly:- Speak in a clear tone so it’s understandable.
· Don’t cover your mouth when talking:- most people with hearing aids probably lip read.
· Assisting someone to put the hearing aids in:- don’t switch them on until you have them in. It’s rather unpleasant if you turn them on and they’re squeaking in your ear.
· Make sure the right and left hearing aid is in the correct ear:- In the battery compartment there are two colours to distinguish which is for which ear, if you see red that’s for the right ear and blue is for the left ear.
· Proper fit:- make sure you have the whole ear piece fitted correctly. The easiest way is to hold the top of the ear and start with the top of the ear mould and then push it in to place. If it is not fitted correctly, it will cause soreness and poor hearing.
· Change the batteries:- Rule of thumb, change them once a week.
· Dispose the batteries on the recycle bin.
· Maintenance:- Hearing aids are great but if the ear piece is full of wax or moisture they will not work. Carefully disconnect the tube and blow air through, also check that it’s not blocked. Also, you should brush the microphones on the top of the hearing aid with a small brush that comes with the hearing aid.
· Have the tubing replaced regularly:- plastic turns brittle over time, this distorts the hearing. It’s easy to do yourself but if you can’t you can make an appointment with the hearing aid clinics. They can also check that the hearing aids work properly.
· Check ears: – check hearing for wax and build up. Have ears syringed regularly
· Don’t get them wet:- they are not designed to get wet.
