Archive for April, 2010

Many Americans suffer from hearing loss. Most of them are taking an average of seven to 10 years before they do anything about it.

That is a pretty long time to not properly hear the world around us.  You may wonder what’s the harm in waiting.  You probably think you can get by without too much of a problem. What’s the rush, you may ask.

All that waiting is more than likely causing more damage to your hearing.  Don’t let another month pass before you take action to improve your hearing health. This May pause to take time out to care for yourself and your loved ones during Better Hearing Month.

Consider what happens to a person’s arm after it has been in a cast for months.  Once the cast is removed, typically the arm will look smaller and less muscular than it did before the break.  This process can be defined as atrophy.  In layman’s terms, this means that if you don’t use your arm for an extended period of time, you lose the muscle mass and strength. This “use it or lose it” concept can also be applied to our hearing. However, the biggest difference between the two is that you can rebuild muscle mass after a broken arm.  Once you have hearing loss, most of the time, you cannot reverse it.

Studies have shown that the more proactive you are about your hearing health and the faster you pursue amplification once you are a candidate for hearing aids, the greater the possibility of the progression of the hearing loss slowing down somewhat.  It is important to note that this does not mean that hearing aids can stop your hearing loss from getting worse.  However, they have been proven to keep the hearing organs and nerves functioning longer than if aids are not used.

Think about the sounds that make up your world and your life.  You want to preserve this important sense for as long as you can.  If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with hearing loss, or thinks there might be hearing loss present, visit a local hearing healthcare provider like Hearing Aid Express to determine if hearing aids are right for you. There’s never going to be a better time to address your hearing health.

Hearing Aid Express always offers free hearing tests. If you know you have a hearing loss, take a look at our special offers and take the next step to improve your hearing.

Are there waterproof hearing aids?

Hearing aids have to have some sort of opening for the microphone so that sound waves can get inside.  Once inside, the computer chip in the hearing aid processes the signal (adjusting for noise, different frequencies and so on) and delivers the modified sounds to your eardrum.
Because there must be an opening for sound waves to get in to the aid there are no hearing aids that are completely waterproof (meaning you can’t store them in a bowl of water!).  There are some new hearing aids that are surprisingly water-resistant.

What’s the problem with water and moisture?

Hearing aids are small electronic devices.  They have one or more microphones, a receiver (or “speaker”), a computer chip, a battery for power, plus delicate wiring and other components.  Electrical devices and water don’t mix.  In fact, moisture, whether from water, sweat or humidity is one of the leading reasons hearing aids need to be repaired.  In Texas this is an especially big problem.

What about these new Water Resistant hearing aids?  How are they different?

Some new hearing aids are nano-coated to make them very water resistant.  This coating is extremely thin – less than one thousandth the thickness of a human hair.  The company doing this nano-coating is P2i www.p2ilabs.com.  (Note: watch their video to see how this coating keeps water out!)
A few hearing aid manufacturers including ReSound and Starkey are now using this  nano-coating technology on some of their hearing aid models.  This coating makes them very resistant to moisture, which should greatly reduce the need for repairs.  Nano-coating can only be applied during the manufacturing processing and is only available for BTE and RIC models.
Contact the nearest Hearing Aid Express office (show locations here) to learn more about these new “nearly” waterproof hearing aids.