Step Five: Practice, Time and Patience, Your Keys to Success
There is a common discipline followed by all men and women who successfully make the transition to hearing aids. It is called practice. It is an investment that will cost you time and patience. It is an investment that will usually begins to pay dividends within 45 days. Once you have logged the sufficient number of hours for your brain to reacclimate to ambient sounds, you will be able to go on with your life without thinking so much about your hearing.
While we encourage new users to start at a slow pace at home, your ultimate goal should be to use your hearing aids all day, every day. This includes times when it is quiet, times when it is noisy and times when you may think you don’t need to be wearing them.
After you have completed your initial week- to two-weeks of gradual hearing aid use, you should put your hearing aids on first thing when you wake up and take them out at bedtime. It is a mistake to only wear them when you go out to social functions because your brain will be flooded and startled by unfamiliar ambient sounds.
Unless your hearing aids become part of your habit through daily use, your brain will not be stimulated long enough to learn to interpret the true sounds of your world; in this case hearing aids will always make your environment sound funny and you will probably begin to keep them in your sock drawer. Frequent and consistent use is necessary for your brain to adjust and for you to achieve successful communications again.
Be patient and don’t give up. Retreat temporarily if you become tired, but don’t quit. Keep working—it will become easy. Call us whenever you need help or encouragement.
It is your responsibility to stay in contact with us on any concern you have about excessive loudness or lack of perceived benefit. On average, new hearing aid users should come back three or four times during the first 30 days for us to make adjustments, check your progress, and help you overcome hard listening situations.
Read Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five