How to Clean and Maintain your Hearing Aids
Gaby Lesniak • May 20, 2020
As much as I miss seeing patients in the clinic, the MOST IMPORTANT thing for me as a health professional is the HEALTH AND SAFETY of both my patients and myself. Hence, why I am writing this blog post about how to clean and maintain your hearing aids, so that you can avoid coming into the clinic as much as possible and maintain social distancing recommendations.
First things first, every night before you go to bed, its important to wipe down your hearing aids with a cloth. It doesn’t have to be a special cloth, any old cloth will do, however, those microfiber clothes that come with your hearing aids and glasses are a really great tool to use. This process just gets the moisture off on your hearing aids. If you have RECHARGEABLE hearing aids, make sure to spend a little extra time cleaning the moisture off of the contact point between the hearing aid and the charger (see, battery drawer, above).
After you wipe down the hearing aids it is a good idea to take the brush that was included in your hearing aid kit when your purchased it (if you lost it, a toothbrush will do the trick) and gently brush the microphone openings of the hearing aids which can be seen below. This will get any tissue that has fallen from your face or skin out of the microphone opening, which is the place that receives external sound, so its important to keep that clean.
AT LEAST, once a month you are going to have to change the wax filter of the hearing aids (pictured above). The wax filter can be found by taking off the dome of your hearing aid. You will see a little white basket, this is the wax filter. Although they are manufactured with nano coating that should make earwax slide ride out of them, often times they do get plugged up, reducing or eliminating the sound getting to your ears. Each hearing aid manufacturer has a different wax guard removal system, click on the link below to find your model of hearing aid, and a video on how to appropriately change the wax guard of your hearing aid. If you are a person who produces a lot of wax, you might want to do this every two weeks or whenever you feel like the sound coming from your hearing aid is muffled or gone.
Finally, if you have a BTE (Behind The Ear) hearing aid, you have ONE extra step that may or may not require a visit to the clinic. If the tubing on your hearing aid becomes hard, filled with moisture, or plugged with wax, please contact your hearing care clinic for new tubing. The tube can be mailed to you for replacement, alternatively, you can drop your hearing aid off at your local hearing clinic and a technician will have it replaced for you within ten minutes.
I know this is a short and sweet post, but I feel like it is important to have these tidbits of knowledge in order to keep you out of the clinic and safe at home.
Happy Isolating Everyone
Gaby Lesniak- Owner and Audiologist
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