Congratulations on your new hearing aids! We’re excited to be a part of your journey to better hearing health. Now that you’ve got your hearing aids, it’s time to begin the adjustment process. Hearing aids present a massive change, and you’ll discover that it may take a few days or weeks for your brain to acclimate to this new amount of information.
Why Hearing Aids Require an Adjustment Period
Among adults 70 years old and older who could benefit from hearing aids, only 30% have ever used them. Among adults under 70 years old, it goes down to 16%. When hearing loss goes untreated, the problem doesn’t just go away. Instead, just like any muscle, the auditory processing center in your brain gets out of shape from underuse. Its ability to process large amounts of sound information deteriorates.
Now that you’re wearing hearing aids, your brain is suddenly getting a massive increase in work. This is a great thing! Conversations are easier to follow and take less mental processing power to understand. Additionally, you’re hearing background noise that you may not have noticed you couldn’t hear anymore. At first, your brain will be overwhelmed. To go back to the idea of the brain being “out of shape,” the effort it takes to start processing all that sound again will make your brain “sore,” as if working out for the first time in a long time.
The good news is that the brain will get back in shape; it will acclimate to the new quantity of sound information it needs to process. This will happen gradually, but it will happen.
What the Adjustment Period May Feel Like
An overworked and overstimulated brain can cause a few side effects:
- Tiredness or fatigue
- Sensory overload or feeling overstimulated
- Headaches
- Itchy ears
- Feeling easily annoyed at smaller sounds, like chewing
- Irritability and frustration
How To Adjust
Try the following to adjust to your hearing aids:
- Wear them at home to start. Don’t jump straight into the deep end and go to a noisy, crowded Portland restaurant on the first day. Wear them around your home, doing everything you do in a typical day, and get used to the sounds of your normal environment.
- Talk to yourself. Read out loud to yourself or talk to your pet. Hearing the sound of your own voice is one of the more surprising parts of getting new hearing aids, so it’s helpful to get used to that again. Plus, the low-level noise from you talking can help warm your brain up without being overwhelming.
- Gradually increase your wear time. Challenge yourself. Wear them for as long as you can on the first day—a few hours, ideally. The second day, try to wear them for one hour longer than you did the day before. Add another hour on the third day, another hour on the fourth, and so on until you can wear them all day.
- Take breaks, but not too many. Give yourself some time to rest if you need it, but try not to take too many breaks.
- Know that you’re going to get frustrated. Be patient with yourself and your brain. This is a positive step, but it’s a big adjustment. Give yourself some grace on the days you feel frustrated.
Follow-Up Visits
You will have a follow-up appointment with your audiologist two to four weeks after you get your hearing aids. Make sure you attend this appointment and discuss how the adjustment period is going. Talk about any discomfort or frustrations you may have experienced, but also celebrate this positive change and how exciting it is to be able to hear more clearly again. Your audiologist may have some advice at that appointment for dealing with the adjustment process if necessary. Call PDX ENT today for more information.
