Hearing Aids: The Adjustment Period

Adjusting to hearing aids can take up to four months. This means within approximately four months you should be able to comfortably adapt to your hearing aids and get a lot of benefits from them. You’ll start to notice little things like maybe the sound of running water in the sink, or birds chirping. If you don’t hear noises that you recognize right away, don’t worry and be patient.

If you are concerned or have questions in regards to your hearing progress, contact your hearing instrument specialist. It’s normal to get your hearing aids adjusted multiple times during your trial period. Hearing aids are an investment in your health, so your hearing aid provider will be more than willing to work with you in order to get the most out of your hearing aids. Communicate what your hearing needs are with them.

Have a Realistic Outlook 

Think back to the time when your hearing loss was very slowly getting worse. You, or your loved ones, noticed your inability to hear specific speech sounds due to background noise, or normal sounds of the environment that they were in, like traffic noises.

Hearing Sounds Again Requires Practice

After you start to wear hearing aids, sounds that you have not heard - possibly in many years - will need to be relearned and stored in your brain. It takes practice and patience to not only relearn these sounds but also to selectively concentrate and sift out those sounds.  

Patience is the Key

It takes time to adjust to your hearing aids. Try to be as patient as your loved ones were before you got your hearing aids and you struggled to hear them. Our specialists recommend wearing your hearing aids as often as you can, in order to be able to distinguish the differences between the noises around you. You may think that the room you are in is completely silent until you notice the subtle sounds of food sizzling in your skillet, or birds chirping outside.  

Give Yourself a Break

You may get listening fatigue during your adjustment period. This is similar to rehabilitating and retraining a muscle that you haven’t been able to use for quite some time. There are worthwhile benefits to your determination to hear better. You, your loved ones, colleagues and others who you interact with will be grateful for your efforts. 

Getting your hearing tested and being fitted for hearing aids is the first and most important step, but there is so much more work to get the most out of your hearing aids. Adapting to hearing aids could be compared to learning how to drive. It’s a careful process that takes commitment, discipline, patience and time. 

If you, or a loved one, are experiencing difficulty with hearing, please contact us at Pure Sound Hearing Aids for a free hearing test and consultation. We offer hearing aid brands from HANSATON, Oticon,
Phonak, ReSound, Rexton, Signia, Starkey, Unitron and Widex.  

Contact Us