Imagine you wake up and no sound is coming out of your hearing aid. Today you have an important business meeting at work or celebration with family and friends. Unfortunately, hearing aids can “die” at any time, whether it’s convenient for you or not. For many people, a hearing aid is a lifeline for communication and without it they can struggle in everyday situations. That is why we have five easy steps for you to troubleshoot your hearing aid at home!
- Change the battery
When a hearing aid dies, this first thing you should do is replace the battery. Occasionally there can be a bad battery in a pack or the battery can die without you hearing the “low battery warning”. In these cases, a new battery will remedy the problem. For those people who have rechargeable hearing aids, make sure that your hearing aid is charging. You can tell this by the light indicators on the hearing aid itself or through your smartphone app. If your hearing aids are not charging, try a different outlet for your charger.
- Clean wax from the hearing aid
While ear wax has an important purpose in our ears, it can clog up our hearing aids and block sound from coming out. At night when you take your hearing aids out, inspect the hearing aid for wax. If you see any wax on the hearing aid, gently wipe it off with a tissue or cleaning cloth.
- Change the wax filter
You have cleaned the visible wax off your hearing aid and sound still is not coming out. That means it may be time to change the wax filter. The wax filter is a small white filter that sits in the speaker of hearing aid, where the sound comes out in your ear. This small filter acts like a drain in the tub. It will fill with ear wax until it is full. Unfortunately, when the filter is full no sound will come out of the hearing aid. To change this filter, you will use the wax filter pack provided at your hearing aid fitting to remove to old filter and replace with a new one. Step-by-step instructions are on the packaging.
- Clean the microphones
On your hearing aid are two openings where sound comes into the hearing aid. These openings are the microphones. Hearing aid microphone ports can become clogged with debris over time. To clean the microphones, run a cleaning brush over the openings to free the debris. This back and forth motion should help to free some or all of the debris trapped in the microphones.
- Check your volume settings
Many hearing aid patients have a manual volume control programmed into their hearing aids. This allows them to change the volume using the buttons on the hearing aid or a smartphone app. You may think your hearing aid is “dead” when the volume was accidentally turned all the way down or the hearing aids were muted. Use your smartphone app or hearing aid buttons to make sure that your volume is at an appropriate level and it was not accidentally lowered.
If these five quick and easy steps do not fix the problem or you have questions, feel free to call us at (443) 544-7555 or drop off your hearing aid for repair at the front desk. We are always here to help!